WEBVTT

NOTE 75. The Republic of Vermont

1
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.000
Volume 4, Chapter 75, The Republic of Vermont

2
00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:10.000
Still another territory of ambivalent status was Vermont.

3
00:00:10.000 --> 00:00:20.000
As late as 1778, Vermont, an independent republic, had not been recognized by the United States or accepted as a state.

4
00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:26.000
The acceptance of the western New Hampshire River towns as part of Vermont incurred the

5
00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:32.840
intense hostility of New Hampshire and of the United States, and the westside Vermont

6
00:00:32.840 --> 00:00:39.600
towns succeeded in expelling their new acquisition, though at the price of threatened secession

7
00:00:39.600 --> 00:00:45.320
by the eastside towns in union with their confrères on the other side of the Connecticut

8
00:00:45.320 --> 00:00:46.320
River.

9
00:00:46.320 --> 00:00:51.320
Soon the Eastside towns erupted against their tormentors in the West.

10
00:00:51.320 --> 00:00:57.320
In the spring of 1779, the bulk of the towns on both sides of the Connecticut River

11
00:00:57.320 --> 00:01:03.320
inconsistently called for the New Hampshire conquest of all Vermont,

12
00:01:03.320 --> 00:01:06.320
any stick with which to beat their Westside oppressors.

13
00:01:06.320 --> 00:01:12.320
But the major war raged in the Southeastern towns, which were generally loyal to New York.

14
00:01:12.320 --> 00:01:13.320
work.

15
00:01:13.320 --> 00:01:19.720
Vermont, not very consistently, was unwilling to allow its southeastern towns, Brattleboro,

16
00:01:19.720 --> 00:01:25.240
Guilford and others, the self-determination that it claimed for itself.

17
00:01:25.240 --> 00:01:31.780
It began confiscating cows in lieu of compulsory military service in the southeast, and Yorker

18
00:01:31.780 --> 00:01:38.880
crowds led by Elazer Patterson, Colonel in the New York militia, began recapturing the

19
00:01:38.880 --> 00:01:45.480
The Cow's and returning them to their original owners. The Cow War was on. Patterson kept

20
00:01:45.480 --> 00:01:49.880
pleading with Governor Clinton of New York to come to the aid of the suffering Yorkers

21
00:01:49.880 --> 00:01:55.720
against the Vermont invasion, but Clinton, beset by large threat from the British, sent

22
00:01:55.720 --> 00:02:01.720
only promises and encouragement. Unchecked by New York intervention, the petty despots

23
00:02:01.720 --> 00:02:08.280
of Vermont sent Ethan Allen and a hundred men to crush the Lower East Side rebellion.

24
00:02:08.280 --> 00:02:13.480
No resistance was offered to the formidable Allen, who arrested Patterson and all the

25
00:02:13.480 --> 00:02:21.160
Yorker militia officers. The hapless militiamen were tried under a new law, ironically prohibiting

26
00:02:21.160 --> 00:02:27.460
the disregard of constituted authority. But Vermont truly let the insurgents off with

27
00:02:27.460 --> 00:02:34.120
light fines and granted amnesty to all political prisoners, thus taking all the steam from

28
00:02:34.120 --> 00:02:39.520
from Congress's Order incited by New York to release all such prisoners.

29
00:02:39.520 --> 00:02:46.680
During the summer of 1779, the Lower Eastsiders petitioned Congress for New York's claim

30
00:02:46.680 --> 00:02:52.880
and against Vermont's admission as a state, while New Hampshire voted to incorporate Vermont

31
00:02:52.880 --> 00:02:55.520
into her own territory.

32
00:02:55.520 --> 00:03:02.600
In the face of these conflicting threats, Vermont acted boldly, defying one and all,

33
00:03:02.600 --> 00:03:08.520
and subtly raised the specter of a possible separate peace with Great Britain.

34
00:03:08.520 --> 00:03:13.440
This placed her existence in great peril, for all of her enemy states agreed to place

35
00:03:13.440 --> 00:03:18.760
the power of decision over her fate into the hands of Congress.

36
00:03:18.760 --> 00:03:25.320
Congress arranged to make the decision on February 1, 1780, meanwhile ominously ordering

37
00:03:25.320 --> 00:03:31.360
Vermont to cease granting land or selling confiscated Tory property.

38
00:03:31.360 --> 00:03:36.880
The death knell seemed at hand for the independent state of Vermont. But under the leadership

39
00:03:36.880 --> 00:03:43.160
of the Allens, Vermont defied Congress. As a separate republic, she continued to make

40
00:03:43.160 --> 00:03:50.560
land sales and published several pamphlets by Ethan and Ira Allen for the Vermont cause.

41
00:03:50.560 --> 00:03:56.060
Under this shrewd defiance and the blows of the British invasion in the South, Congress

42
00:03:56.060 --> 00:04:03.260
sidestepped any real decision and confined itself to strongly denouncing Vermont's behavior.

43
00:04:03.260 --> 00:04:10.500
Then, in mid-September, Vermont Governor Thomas Chittenden presented to Congress a flat and

44
00:04:10.500 --> 00:04:12.540
open threat.

45
00:04:12.540 --> 00:04:18.000
Since Congress had refused to admit Vermont as a state, Vermont would feel free to accept

46
00:04:18.000 --> 00:04:21.200
separate peace terms from Great Britain.

47
00:04:21.200 --> 00:04:27.680
Britain began secret negotiations with the Little Republic, and Vermont truly used these

48
00:04:27.680 --> 00:04:33.680
to continue to stave off a British invasion from the North. A Congress frightened by this

49
00:04:33.680 --> 00:04:41.360
great show of determination postponed matters once more. Meanwhile, all the disaffected

50
00:04:41.360 --> 00:04:47.680
men of the East Side, the River Towns, as well as the Yorkers, decided to unite against

51
00:04:47.680 --> 00:04:53.920
of the Vermont oppressors. Meeting at Charlestown, on the east bank of the Connecticut River,

52
00:04:53.920 --> 00:05:01.960
in mid-January 1781, delegates from 43 towns in eastern Vermont and western New Hampshire

53
00:05:01.960 --> 00:05:08.280
decided overwhelmingly to join the state of New Hampshire. But Ira Allen, wheeling and

54
00:05:08.280 --> 00:05:14.420
dealing, persuaded the convention to reverse itself and vote the eastside towns back into

55
00:05:14.420 --> 00:05:20.060
to Vermont. In return, he promised once again that Vermont would take the Western New Hampshire

56
00:05:20.060 --> 00:05:26.980
towns back into the Vermont Republic, an act that would mollify the towns on both sides

57
00:05:26.980 --> 00:05:35.020
of the Connecticut River. Vermont's daring, in the face of enemies on all sides, was phenomenal.

58
00:05:35.020 --> 00:05:40.020
Dickering with Britain to stave off attack, defying New Hampshire by incorporating her

59
00:05:40.020 --> 00:05:47.020
The New York towns, line west of Vermont's border and east of the Hudson and Lake George, responded to the invitation with enthusiasm.

60
00:06:10.020 --> 00:06:16.020
and met in mid-May at Cambridge to apply immediately for inclusion in Vermont.

61
00:06:16.020 --> 00:06:23.020
The June session of the Vermont Legislature eagerly accepted the re-entrance of the New York towns.

62
00:06:23.020 --> 00:06:33.020
Vermont was now united internally, but at the expense of the implacable enmity of New Hampshire and New York.

63
00:06:33.020 --> 00:06:40.020
New York. In response to Congress's demand to surrender the towns that had seceded from

64
00:06:40.020 --> 00:06:46.360
New Hampshire and New York, she sturdily informed it that she could not do so until admitted

65
00:06:46.360 --> 00:06:53.360
as a state. Yorktown finally eliminated the threat of British invasion, but again opened

66
00:06:53.360 --> 00:06:59.180
Vermont to attacks from its jealous neighbors. New York sent a troop of militia under Colonel

67
00:06:59.180 --> 00:07:06.780
John Van Rensselaer to try to recover the seceding New York areas called the West Union.

68
00:07:06.780 --> 00:07:12.980
But New York militiamen began to desert en masse and defect to the ranks of Vermont.

69
00:07:12.980 --> 00:07:18.640
And the New York force, worn down to eighty men, fled at the arrival of Ethan Allen and

70
00:07:18.640 --> 00:07:21.400
his five hundred Vermonters.

71
00:07:21.400 --> 00:07:26.260
Trouble also sprang up in the East Union, the former New Hampshire River towns, with

72
00:07:26.260 --> 00:07:31.580
With Vermont and New Hampshire imprisoning each other's officials.

73
00:07:31.580 --> 00:07:37.620
An angry mob rescued a pro-Vermont official from a jail in Keene, and the furious New

74
00:07:37.620 --> 00:07:43.400
Hampshire legislature delivered an ultimatum to Vermont to get off the East Union territory

75
00:07:43.400 --> 00:07:50.300
in 40 days or suffer a full-scale invasion by 1,000 New Hampshire troops.

76
00:07:50.300 --> 00:07:55.740
And the Southeast Yorkers sprang up once more to urge Vermont inclusion in the state of

77
00:07:55.740 --> 00:07:57.420
of New York.

78
00:07:57.420 --> 00:08:03.780
At this point, Vermont's bold determination and high resolve were dissolved as if by magic,

79
00:08:03.780 --> 00:08:07.800
by the advice of the now charismatic George Washington.

80
00:08:07.800 --> 00:08:15.380
In January 1782, Washington gravely advised Vermont to surrender the West and East Union

81
00:08:15.380 --> 00:08:22.240
towns to New York and New Hampshire respectively, after which Congress would surely admit Vermont

82
00:08:22.240 --> 00:08:26.320
promptly into the Union as the fourteenth state.

83
00:08:26.320 --> 00:08:32.480
Vermont rapidly divested itself of these acquisitions, even though this meant the betrayal of the

84
00:08:32.480 --> 00:08:35.800
hopes of the East and West Unioners.

85
00:08:35.800 --> 00:08:40.520
Perhaps symbolically, it did this on Washington's birthday.

86
00:08:40.520 --> 00:08:46.360
But with the territory removed from Vermont hands, Congress conveniently forgot its part

87
00:08:46.360 --> 00:09:06.360
New York and New Hampshire began to move in for the kill, and New York passed a law pardoning all citizens of Vermont and recognizing all grants of land made there by New Hampshire or by Vermont itself.

88
00:09:06.360 --> 00:09:15.360
The southeast towns redoubled their urgings to be incorporated into New York, and the eastside towns did the same for New Hampshire.

89
00:09:15.360 --> 00:09:22.520
At this point, rebellion and conflict broke out in the southeast, launched by a Yorker

90
00:09:22.520 --> 00:09:25.440
movement centering in Guilford.

91
00:09:25.440 --> 00:09:31.320
In this unstable situation, Vermont felt it could play New Hampshire and New York against

92
00:09:31.320 --> 00:09:37.560
each other, since in any partition of Vermont, the entire east side was scheduled to go to

93
00:09:37.560 --> 00:09:40.400
New Hampshire and not to New York.

94
00:09:40.400 --> 00:09:44.760
Neither state could then intervene in the fray.

95
00:09:44.760 --> 00:09:51.800
The second cow war began once more over attempted conscription into Vermont's militia, leading

96
00:09:51.800 --> 00:09:59.180
to refusal, consequent confiscation and sale of the refusers' cows by Vermont.

97
00:09:59.180 --> 00:10:05.760
A Yorker mob re-confiscated Joel Bigelow's cow and the fracas had begun again.

98
00:10:05.760 --> 00:10:11.280
Now New York State finally and officially organized Cumberland County in the southeast

99
00:10:11.280 --> 00:10:16.120
appointing sheriffs, judges and militia officers.

100
00:10:16.120 --> 00:10:21.660
In the face of a threatened Vermont invasion, the southeasterners were scarcely deterred

101
00:10:21.660 --> 00:10:26.460
by Vermont's passivity and mild treatment of the affair.

102
00:10:26.460 --> 00:10:31.900
Yorker prisoners were forcibly released and Yorkers refused to pay taxes to the Republic

103
00:10:31.900 --> 00:10:33.640
of Vermont.

104
00:10:33.640 --> 00:10:40.760
Finally in mid-September, Vermont sent Ethan and Ira Allen and over 200 men into Cumberland

105
00:10:40.760 --> 00:10:44.460
and they promptly rounded up the leading Yorker officials.

106
00:10:44.460 --> 00:10:50.200
The blustering threats of the highly feared Ethan Allen to lay waste to Guilford

107
00:10:50.200 --> 00:10:53.400
quelled that town's attempt at resistance.

108
00:10:53.400 --> 00:10:57.500
A Vermont court decreed permanent banishment from the Republic

109
00:10:57.500 --> 00:11:02.600
for the five leading Yorker rebels and confiscation of their property.

110
00:11:02.600 --> 00:11:05.760
Many other Yorker officials were fined or banished

111
00:11:05.760 --> 00:11:09.000
and Ethan Allen accurately taunted the Yorkers,

112
00:11:09.000 --> 00:11:18.000
You have called on your God, Clinton, till you are tired. Call now on your God, Congress, and they will answer you as Clinton has done.

113
00:11:18.000 --> 00:11:26.000
But while no rescue came, the banished leaders were soon readmitted and resumed their rebellious activities,

114
00:11:26.000 --> 00:11:34.000
and were once more arrested and pardoned, and took up rebellion again, and so on in a seemingly endless cycle.

115
00:11:34.000 --> 00:11:40.840
While Washington tried to soften Congress's newly aroused hostility to Vermont, Governor

116
00:11:40.840 --> 00:11:45.440
Clinton continued in implacable opposition.

117
00:11:45.440 --> 00:11:51.000
But as the war with Britain came to an end, both Clinton and Congress were finally getting

118
00:11:51.000 --> 00:11:58.200
increasingly weary of the whole Vermont problem, precisely what the Vermonters had been counting

119
00:11:58.200 --> 00:11:59.360
on.

120
00:11:59.360 --> 00:12:06.220
Mounting rebellion in the southeast finally led to a second invasion by 300 Vermont militia

121
00:12:06.220 --> 00:12:13.460
under Colonel Stephen Bradley in mid-January 1784, and this invasion again quelled the

122
00:12:13.460 --> 00:12:15.720
southeast revolt.

123
00:12:15.720 --> 00:12:21.160
With the death of the leader of the rebellion, Charles Phelps of Marlboro, the seemingly

124
00:12:21.160 --> 00:12:26.240
interminable Yorker revolt came to an end.

125
00:12:26.240 --> 00:12:32.240
Rothbard still stood as an independent republic, albeit shorn of its expanded East and West

126
00:12:32.240 --> 00:12:38.600
Union towns, its eventual admission to the Confederation apparently inevitable.