(“Then Again” is Mark Bushnell’s column about Vermont history.)
Vermont had a drinking problem. Like the rest of the young nation, Vermont during the early 1800s was awash in alcohol. Seemingly any gathering was an excuse to drink — weddings, funerals, house-raisings, even militia training days. One Vermonter commented that cavalry soldiers understood only three commands: “Mount! Drink! Fall off!”
But Vermont’s substance abuse problem was no laughing matter. Drinking had serious social ramifications. Drunks often left their families destitute. Things were so bad that a state legislative committee in 1817 found that in some towns, people spent more on liquor than on schools and all other public expenses combined.
Social reformers created a temperance movement to combat the evils of drink. The movement tried moral suasion to get drinkers to quit. When that failed to change society, reformers looked to change the laws.
The temperance crusade, one of the strongest social movements of its day, had friends in the Legislature. In 1844, lawmakers banned the sale of alcohol in all Vermont communities. But honoring the state’s tradition of local control, the Legislature created a “local option” system. Communities could opt out of the statewide ban if voters decided to approve the granting of local liquor licenses.
Then in 1846, the Legislature passed a law requiring a license for anyone who wanted to sell distilled liquor, wine or beer. No license was required to sell “small beer” — beer with a very low alcohol content. Licenses for selling harder stuff were to be awarded by county judges. Licensing fees were steep so not just anyone would get one.
But lawmakers decided to leave it to the public whether this new law would be enacted. The legislation called for a statewide referendum on the question to be held on Town Meeting Day in March 1847. If a majority of Vermonters approved the licensing system, it would go into effect. If most Vermonters opposed it, then judges would be restricted to issuing licenses only for “medicinal, chemical or mechanical purposes.”
The referendum was purely advisory — Vermont doesn’t have a binding referendum system — but legislators made it clear they would abide by the majority’s will.
Teetotaling Vermonters won the day easily, outvoting pro-license Vermonters 21,798 to 13,707. Only in Essex County were pro-license voters in the majority.
But temperance supporters didn’t get to celebrate for long — not that they were the type to get carried away anyhow — because the law called for these referenda to be annual Town Meeting Day occurrences.
And the public turned out to be ambivalent about the issue. At town meetings in 1848, the pro-license faction prevailed, though by the slenderest of margins: 14 votes statewide. But the following year, Vermonters again overwhelmingly voted against issuing licenses.
Final answer?
Many lawmakers grew tired of this vacillating. In 1850 they scrapped the annual referenda on liquor and voted to make the entire state “dry,” but left in exceptions for things like small beer and cider, and alcohol needed for “medicinal, chemical and mechanical purposes.”
Two years later, they decided to make the state drier still, banning the sale or production of all alcohol, though leaving exemptions for medicinal purposes and Communion wine. But again they sought voter approval in a statewide referendum. They said that after this vote, however, there would be no more annual reconsiderations of the question.
The public again showed its ambivalence, approving prohibition 22,315 to 21,794, a margin of only 521 votes statewide.
The referendum divided the state. The strongest support for prohibition came from the west side of Vermont, while all of the eastern counties, except Caledonia, opposed it.
In general, large towns favored prohibition, while small ones resisted it. Residents of large communities, which had seen a sudden influx of immigrants in the mid-1800s — Burlington was one-third Irish in 1850 — feared that the newcomers would exacerbate the state’s drinking problem. People in smaller towns, who hadn’t experienced this influx, opposed prohibition, presumably because they didn’t want to have their rights curtailed.
In 1853 lawmakers demonstrated that they were as conflicted on the issue as other Vermonters by considering repealing the new prohibition law. But they decided to leave it alone. The law would stand for half a century.
A political wedge
Defeat didn’t sit well with anti-prohibition politicians. They found a target for their outrage in Erastus Fairbanks, the Republican governor who had been a major force behind prohibition. In the election of 1853, Fairbanks easily outpolled his opponent, Democrat John S. Robinson, 44 to 38 percent. But since neither candidate had won a majority, the decision went to the Legislature. At the time, each town had a representative to the Legislature, so small-town lawmakers were able to band together and give the election to Robinson (who would be the last Democratic governor until 1963).
A half-century after Fairbanks’ defeat, Percival Clement entered the picture and things changed. It’s easy to picture Clement as Rich Uncle Pennybags, the top-hatted mascot of the Monopoly game. Clement, the scion of a moneyed Rutland marble dealer, owned the Rutland Railroad and the Rutland Herald, as well as hotels, a bank and a brokerage house in New York City. He wasn’t short on money, but he wanted more power.
A former Rutland mayor, state representative and state senator, Clement decided to challenge the establishment candidate, John McCullough, for the Republican Party nomination for governor in 1902. Clement used prohibition as a wedge issue. He said the law was another example of government trying to control people’s lives. Clement proposed adding a local-option proviso to let towns decide whether to become “wet,” by allowing alcohol to be sold and produced within their boundaries, or to remain “dry.”
Republican leaders were incensed that Clement would challenge the establishment’s man and use the explosive issue of prohibition to do so. At their state convention — these were the days before direct primaries — they gave McCullough the nomination.
Not to be silenced, Clement mounted a strong third-party bid in the general election, but lost to McCullough by about 3,000 votes statewide.
Tables are turned
In a way, however, Clement prevailed. His call for a local option proved so popular that lawmakers approved such a law in 1902. Again, however, they left it to Vermonters to decide whether it would take effect. The Legislature called a public referendum to decide what date the law would be enacted — 1903 or 1906. If they picked the later date, it was understood, lawmakers would use the grace period to revoke the law.
This time, nearly 70 percent of the state’s smallest towns backed prohibition by voting for the later date. But Vermont’s largest communities now supported local option. These larger communities, as well as tourist towns, now saw prohibition as interfering with recent efforts to promote tourism. After all, would more tourists choose to visit “wet” Saratoga Springs, New York, or “dry” places like Manchester, Woodstock and Stowe?
The larger communities won again, and Vermont instituted the local option. But the law lasted only 18 years, until passage of the 18th Amendment instituted national prohibition. As it happened, Vermont’s governor at the time was Percival Clement.
Prohibition nationwide proved as unsuccessful in ending alcohol consumption as previous statewide efforts, and it died in 1933 with passage of the 21st Amendment.
But local option remains alive in Vermont today. Communities still have the right to vote at town meeting whether to be dry or wet, which ought to guarantee a good turnout.
Local option, however, is little used in Vermont. It’s been decades since a handful of towns voted to become dry. You can still drink alcohol in any of them, but if you visit the towns of Baltimore, Athens, Maidstone, Weybridge or Holland, don’t try to buy or sell a drink.
