Vermont Admitted to the Union

Vermont Admitted to the Union

On March 4, 1791, Vermont gained statehood. Vermont was not one of the 13 original states. Indeed, the inhabitants of the Green Mountains in 1777 took advantage of the chaos of the American Revolution to declare themselves independent of their neighboring states as well as of Great Britain. However, in the years that followed Vermont's 1777 declaration of independence, Vermont repeatedly tried to become a member of the Union. For more than a decade its status remained controversial, but finally the disputes over the region were resolved, and in 1791 the area won acceptance as the 14th state.

The convention that declared Vermont's independence on January 15, 1777, did not bring a unified Vermont into existence. The southwestern area around Bennington strongly supported an independent status for Vermont, but the remainder of what is now the state was less enthusiastic. Most of the region east of the Green Mountains in the Connecticut Valley considered joining the New Hampshire towns east of the Connecticut River in a separate “Valley state,” and the southeastern portion of Vermont, which was heavily populated by settlers from New York, retained strong ties with that state. In addition, British forces occupied most of the northern region, including all the territory along Lake Champlain, so that area had no opportunity to align itself with the new Vermont government.

Despite the lack of unified support for a separate Vermont, a convention met at Windsor in July 1777 to draw up a state constitution. The Vermont frame of government drew heavily from that adopted by Pennsylvania in 1776, but included several additions. Vermont's constitution was the first to specifically prohibit slavery and to provide for universal manhood suffrage. The 1777 document was never submitted to Vermont's inhabitants for ratification; nevertheless, it became and substantially remains their basic frame of government. The framers of the Vermont Constitution hoped that after they had drawn up that document, the Continental Congress would approve their application for statehood. Their aspirations were ill founded, however. The Congress upheld New York's contention that it had jurisdiction over the Green Mountain area and denounced Vermont's claims to independence.

In May 1778, Ethan Allen, who nearly three years earlier had been taken prisoner by the British during the American revolutionaries' unsuccessful campaign against Quebec, was exchanged and returned to Vermont. A land speculator whose financial interests would be best served if Vermont were independent of New York, Allen used his considerable talents in the years that followed to strengthen the state. Since his influence was greatest in the Bennington area, he worked particularly hard to ensure the dominance of that region in the politics of the new state.

At the first meeting of the Vermont legislature in the spring of 1778, the representatives from the Connecticut Valley put forth a plan to include the New Hampshire areas located east of the Connecticut River within the jurisdiction of Vermont. A number of towns on the western frontier of New Hampshire were dissatisfied with what they believed to be inadequate representation in that state's legislature, and were willing to transfer their loyalties to the new state of Vermont. Allen, however, opposed the admission of these towns because they would shift the balance of political control from western Vermont to the Connecticut Valley. He wrote to the governors of Vermont and New Hampshire protesting the former state's admission of the New Hampshire towns, and he traveled to Philadelphia, where he promised the New Hampshire delegate to the Continental Congress that the towns on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River would be returned to his state if New Hampshire supported Vermont's application for statehood. When he returned to Vermont, Allen gave the state legislature an extremely negative report on the reaction of Congress to Vermont's taking over the New Hampshire towns. He warned that “the whole power of the United States of America will join to annihilate the State of Vermont, to vindicate the right of New Hampshire.…” Allen's dire words had their intended result. In the fall of 1778, the Vermont legislature decided to not recognize the inclusion of the New Hampshire towns in the eastern Vermont counties, and when the representatives reconvened in the western Vermont town of Bennington in February 1779, the western delegates, who this time outnumbered their eastern counterparts 29 to 21, were able to end the New Hampshire towns' association with Vermont.

As a result of the legislature's ejection of the New Hampshire towns, most of the area west of the Connecticut River declined further connection with Vermont. The fledgling Green Mountain State was thus reduced to a small number of western towns and a few isolated eastern towns. Allen worked to intimidate settlers into staying with Vermont. For example, since the inhabitants of Cumberland County refused to acknowledge Vermont's draft law, Allen used this excuse to lead 100 of his Vermont followers into its precincts. There, he arrested 36 persons who sympathized with New York. As a show of force, Allen persuaded a Vermont court to fine these “Yorkers.” Vermont's governor, Thomas Chittenden, eventually pardoned the Yorkers, but the incident had considerable impact. The Yorkers wrote to New York governor George Clinton that Allen was “more to be dreaded than death with all its terrors,” and Clinton in turn made a protest to the Continental Congress.

Although the Revolutionary War against Britain dominated the attentions of the Continental Congress, in 1779 that body realized that it could no longer ignore the Vermont question. Congress asked the bordering states of New York, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts to allow the national government to establish their respective boundaries. Vermont, however, was not asked to participate in these negotiations. Exclusion from the deliberations greatly antagonized the Vermont legislature that met in October 1779, and that body reaffirmed its independent status.

The ongoing war delayed the Continental Congress's consideration of the problem. Meanwhile some Vermont leaders, perhaps acting on the belief that the Congress would never recognize an independent Vermont, began to explore the practicality of an alliance with British Canada. Ethan Allen and his brother, Ira Allen, realized that an enlarged Vermont would improve their bargaining power with the British. Thus, with the help of the loyalists who inhabited the Connecticut Valley, Ira Allen persuaded or intimidated a large number of the towns on both sides of that river to rejoin Vermont in April 1781. Then, due to the efforts of Ethan Allen, a number of towns located between the Hudson River and the area claimed by Vermont also voted to join Vermont.

News of Vermont's interest in negotiating with the British, and its absorption of New York and New Hampshire towns, quickly came to the attention of the Continental Congress. Ethan Allen even admitted to the president of the congress that he had corresponded with the British colonel Beverly Robinson. Allen showed no remorse over his activities, stating: “I am as resolutely determined to defend the independence of Vermont as Congress that of the United States.…”

For a time it seemed that Vermont might gain admission to the Union in 1781, but Congress could not acquiesce to Vermont's absorption of the New York and New Hampshire towns, and resolved that Vermont would be granted statehood if the towns in question were returned to the respective states. Unwilling to give up the towns, the Allens and some of their political allies continued to explore a possible rapprochement with the British. However, the American victory over the British at Yorktown in the fall of 1781 ended the American Revolution and with it any hope of a feasible Vermont-British agreement.

Vermont agreed to give up the towns in question, but it did not immediately gain admission into the United States. Southern members of Congress were reluctant to increase the number of New England states in the Union, while those who represented states with western claims balked at establishing a state in an area claimed by one of the original states. Congress's failure to accept Vermont as a state disappointed many inhabitants of that region and briefly revived interest in a reunion with the British. However, in the Treaty of Paris of 1783 the British recognized the northern boundary of the United States to be the 45th parallel and thus tacitly acknowledged the jurisdiction of the new American nation over the area of Vermont.

After the adoption of the United States Constitution in 1787, Alexander Hamilton of New York persuaded Congress to reconsider Vermont's statehood. In 1789, New York, which had previously blocked efforts to create a new state from the area that it claimed, agreed to consider a compromise. Settlement of the decades-old controversy followed in 1790. New York received $30,000 from Vermont in settlement of all land claims, and in turn agreed to Vermont's admission to the Union. On January 6, 1791, Vermont ratified the U.S. Constitution, and on March 4, 1791, Congress voted unanimously for Vermont to become the 14th member of the United States.