The Senate voted 28-1 in favor of a proposal to amend the Vermont Constitution to clarify that slavery and indentured servitude are prohibited “in any form.”
The Wednesday vote was preceded by many of the same arguments that have been made for the last two months as the proposal worked its way through committee.
Sens. Jeanne White, D-Windham, and Dick McCormack, D-Windsor, were the two key players during debate on the floor, with White defending the proposal as an important clarification, while McCormack argued that to pass the amendment would be to put a “smiley face” on history.
White, chair of the Government Operations Committee, which approved the amendment 5-0, noted that Vermont was the first state to prohibit slavery in its Constitution, doing so in 1777. She said the document doesn’t make clear that slavery is illegal for all people, not just those over 21. White said under no circumstances is indentured servitude acceptable, that the framers may have used “clumsy language” — but that it’s nonetheless worth revising.
She pointed out that prohibiting slavery has no practical effect, given the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolished slavery in 1865.
“It will not change any law, and it will not guarantee any new rights or freedoms,” White said. “But we’re living in troubling times. We’re experiencing an increase in hate crimes and attitudes of intolerance. They exist all over the country and in all corners of Vermont.”
But McCormack argued that the proposal’s lack of functionality is exactly why it shouldn’t pass. He said that since the wording of the article has no legal power in either form, the one thing it can have is historic power. He likened the wording of the Constitution to the Liberty Bell with its crack.
“We’re the Senate. We’re supposed to deal with things that have weight,” McCormack said. “Energy conservation has gravitas, for example. Putting a smiley face on history — pretending that the founders said something that they never said or we wished they had, does not have gravitas.”
White noted that although the initial proposal was to eliminate references to slavery from the Constitution entirely, they decided it was actually important to reference slavery in order to prohibit it outright.
“We live in the 21st century, and for many people, I daresay this language is not something that they can excuse,” said Sen. Debbie Ingram, D-Chittenden. “It’s something that speaks to them that reminds them of the terrible history, of the many different ways that people of color have been enslaved in this country … our Constitution is for everyone, and it is the modern embodiment of our values. If we can’t see that, we don’t have enough imagination to do that, then I think it’s a terrible shame.”
McCormack noted that although this wasn’t a vote he would win, the proposal still had to pass the House this biennium, along with both bodies in the next biennium, and then head to a vote in the general election before the amendment was final.
“I think we have time for reflection,” he said.
