Editor’s note: This oped is by John McClaughry, vice president of the Ethan Allen Institute (www.ethanallen.org)
Last Saturday Vermonters re-enacted the adoption of Vermont’s remarkable Constitution of 1777. Strongly influenced by the Pennsylvania Constitution, the handiwork of the farmers and woodsmen assembled at the Constitution House in Windsor is today the oldest, shortest and arguably the most liberal (in 18th Century terms) of the fifty state constitutions.
Vermont’s founders took Article I of Chapter I, the Declaration of Rights, from George Mason’s Virginia Bill of Rights that appeared a year earlier: “That all men are born equally free and independent, and have certain natural, inherent and unalienable rights, amongst which are the enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.”
Note that the Vermont Constitution, unlike Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, explicitly declares the right of citizens to acquire, possess and protect their property. This provision reflected the early Vermonters’ confrontation with Yorker feudalism, where landless tenants labored under the yoke of the Hudson Valley patroons. That, Vermonters said, was not freedom, but serfdom, and there would be none of it in the new Green Mountain State.
Vermonters have long celebrated their Constitution for being the first in the Americas to outlaw human slavery (at least above the age of 21) and the first to provide for universal manhood suffrage. There is a third “first”, rarely acknowledged. The Vermont Constitution was the first written constitution in the world to provide that, although when necessary private property could be taken for public use, “the owner ought to receive an equivalent in money.”
This just compensation clause and its later Federal counterpart proved so troublesome to modern land use planners and controllers that the Vermont Natural Resources Council once sponsored a full day legal conference to find a foolproof way of taking the value of a person’s property for their idea of public benefit (i.e., doing nothing with it), without the public having to pay for the value taken.
Like the later U.S. Bill of Rights, the 1777 Vermont Declaration provides for freedom of religion (Article 3rd), freedom of speech and press (Article 13th), freedom of assembly (Article 20th), due process of law (Article 10th), trial by jury (Article 12th), and the right to “bear arms for the defence of themselves and the state” (Article 16th).
This latter right was invoked a century ago when the Rutland city council adopted an ordinance requiring citizens to get police permits for owning firearms. The no-nonsense, literal-minded (conservative) Supreme Court of 1904 disposed of that idea in one printed page. The Constitution says that Vermonters have the right to keep and bear arms, it declared, and so the Rutland city council can go pound sand.
One long-ignored provision of the Declaration of Rights (Article 9th) states that “previous to any law being made to raise a tax, the purpose for which it is to be raised ought to appear evident to the Legislature to be of more service to community than the money would be if not collected.” Voters may find this useful in confronting tax-raising legislators currently seeking reelection.
Beside these protections of specific rights, the Vermont Constitution contains the immortal Article 18th: “That frequent recurrence to fundamental principles, and a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, industry and frugality, are absolutely necessary to preserve the blessings of liberty, and keep government free; the people ought, therefore, to pay particular attention to these points, in the choice of officers and representatives, and have a right, in a legal way, to exact a due and constant regard to them from their legislators and magistrates, in making and executing such laws as are necessary for the good government of the state.”
This Article endorses popular sovereignty and the accountability of public servants to the people. But more importantly, it defines the character traits that the Founders believed must predominate among the people, lest this brave little frontier republic descend into failure and chaos.
In its century the Vermont Constitution, and its sister documents from Pennsylvania and Virginia, were considered the height of enlightened liberalism. They gave no shrift to crowned ruffians, feudal barons, lords and ladies. They announced the birth of democratic government of and by the people – people who had rights that no government could invade, and arms to stand against tyranny.
This was a scintillating achievement. The question today is whether there are enough Vermonters who still hold to the principles and character traits of 1777 to defend their venerable Constitution, and strengthen the liberal (for that era) culture upon which that Constitution was based.
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