USA > Vermont > Records of the Council of Safety and Governor and Council of the State of Vermont, to which are prefixed the records of the General Conventions from July 1775 to December 1777, Vol. I > Part 10
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The constitution, which was now finally completed, was preceded by a preamble in which the reasons for separating from New York and form- ing a new government, were stated in some detail, but which, as they have already been substantially given, will not now be repeated.
The constitution was in the main a copy of that of Pennsylvania, which had been earnestly recommended as a model by Dr. Thomas Young, the early friend of Vermont. and which was also understood to have the ap- proval of Dr. Franklin and other eminent statesmen. In some import- ant particulars, the Vermont constitution was an improvement upon that of Pennsylvania. This was especially the case in the first section of the declaration of rights, which announced, in formal terms. the natural rights of man, to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The convention added to this " glittering generality" a clause as follows. "Therefore, no male person born in this country, or brought from over sea, ought to be holden by law, toserve any person as a servant, slave or apprentice, after he arrives to the age of twenty-one years, nor female in like manner, after she arrives to the age of eighteen years, unless they are bound by their own consent. after they arrive to such age, or bound by law for the payment of debts. damages, fines. costs, or the like." Vermont was thus the first of the states to prohibit slavery by constitutional provision, a fact of which Vermonters may well be proud.
The form of government was strongly democratic in its character. The elective franchise was given to " every man of the full age of twenty- one years " who had resided in the state for one year. Every such per- son was also eligible to any office in the state. The legislative power was vested in a single assembly of members chosen annually by ballot by the several towns in the state. Each town was to have one rep- resentative, and those towns having more than eighty taxable inhab- itants, were entitled to two. The executive authority was in a governor, lieutenant governor and twelve councillors elected annually by ballot of the whole freemen of the state. The governor and council had no neg- ative power, but it was provided that " all bills of a public nature " before they were finally debated in the general assembly should be laid before the governor and council " for their perusal and proposals of amendment," and also "printed for the information of the people," and that they should not be enacted into laws until the succeeding session of the assembly. From this provision was excepted "temporary acts" which in cases of "sudden emergency" might be passed without being delayed till the next session. The difficulties of a literal compliance with this article were so great that it was found necessary, in the first instance, to treat nearly all
'1 The record of the Charlestown [N. H.] Convention of Jan. 16, 1781, is reserved for the Appendix.
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laws as temporary, and at the succeeding session to declare them perma- nent. In practice under this clause of the constitution, bills were allowed to originate in the council as well as in the house of assembly, and in cases of disagreement between the two bodies upon any measure the matter was usually discussed in grand committee composed of both, the governor presiding. And although the final disposition of any measure was according to the pleasure of the house, the advisory power of the council had a strong tendency to prevent hasty and inconsiderate legis- lation. This article continued a part of the constitution until it was re- vised in 1786, when the provision for printing and postponing the pas- sage of laws was expunged, and in addition to the advisory power of the governor and council, they were authorized to suspend the operation of a bill passed by the house until the next session of the legislature, when in order to become a law it must be again passed by the assembly.
This article in the original constitution in regard to the mode of en- acting laws had been eopied literally from the constitution of Pennsyl- vania, as was also a section which provided for the election by the free- men of the respective counties of "judges of inferior courts of common pleas, sheriff's, justices of the peace and judges of probate," who were to hold their offices " during good behaviour, removable by the general as- sembly upon proof of maladministration." The mode of choosing judges of superior courts was left to the discretion of the legislature, and they were always elected annually by joint ballot of the council and assembly; and on the revision of the constitution in 1786, it was provided that coun- ty officers should also be annually chosen in the same manner. This frame of government, thus modified, continued in operation long after the state became a a member of the federal union, furnishing the people with as much security for their persons and property as was enjoyed by those of other states, and allowing to each individual citizen all the lib- erty which was consistent with the welfare of others. 1
' For the constitution of 1777, see Slade's State Papers, p. 241, and post. For that of 1786, see statutes of 1787. For a history of the forma- tion of the first constitution, see Chipman's Memoir of Chittenden. See also Slade's State Papers, pp. 81, 221, and 511.
THE FIRST CONSTITUTION OF THE
STATE OF VERMONT,
ADOPTED IN CONVENTION AT WINDSOR,
AT THE SESSIONS OF JULY 2-8 AND DEC. 24, 1777.
INTRODUCTION.
THIS Constitution, with the exception of the Preamble and of less than fifty lines of the " Declaration of Rights" and " Plan or Frame of Government." is a copy of the first Constitution of Pennsylvania, which was framed in 1776 by a Convention of which BENJAMIN FRANKLIN was the President. Of one material feature, in which it differed from all the other state constitutions of that period except of Pennsylvania and Georgia, FRANKLIN was the author, and during his life a defender : this was the investment of a single body (the representatives of the towns and people, called the " General Assembly.") with exclusive and supreme leg- islative power, giving to the Governor, Lieutenant Governor and Council advisory power only in the preparation and amendment of bills, and ex- ecutive power over laws and orders enaeted by the General Assembly.
The variations in the Constitution of Vermont, from that of Pennsyl- vania, are all additions ; and, to enable the reader to recognize them, these additions are all printed in Italic, leaving the remainder to stand as in the text of the Constitution of Pennsylvania. The most impor- tant additions,-which may be counted as the work mainly of Dr. THOMAS YOUNG, IRA ALLEN, Capt. HEMAN ALLEN, and THOMAS CHITTENDEN-are as follows : 1
1 See Dr. Young's letters, Appendix D. The following items are from an account of Ira Allen against the State :
1777, Nov. 2. To 15 days going from Salisbury ( Conn.) to Williams- town, (Mass.) and there with President Chittenden writing the Preamble to the Constitution, &e., from there to Bennington to confer with the Council [of Safety] respecting s'd Preamble-assisting to complete com- piling from manuscript the Constitution of the State, £7 10 0
Expense money,
1777, Nov. 20. To cash paid John Knickerbacor for 3 2 8 copying the Constitution for the press, 18 0
1777, Nov. 26. To 3 days going from Salisbury to Hartford to get the Constitution printed. 1 10 0 See Thompson's Vermont, Part II, p. 107.
The editor has already suggested that the agents sent by Vermont to Congress, who had interviews with Dr. Young, would most probably be
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First Constitution -- Introduction.
J. Slavery prohibited .- Art. I of the Declaration of Rights.
II. Compensation secured for private property taken for public uses .- Art. II of the Declaration of Rights.
III. Security of Protestants against civil disabilities on account of re- ligion .- Articles III of the Declaration of Rights, and Section Ix of the Plan or Frame of Government. .
IV. The right to gorern the internal police inherent in the people of the State solely .- Art. IV of the Declaration of Rights.
V. No writ against the person or property of u debtor to issue unless the ereditor shall make oath that he is in danger of losing his debt .- Art. XII of Declaration of Rights.
VI. No person to be transported for trial out of the State for an of- fense committed within it .- Art. XIX of Declaration of Rights.
VII. Form of Freeman's Oath .- Sec. VI of Plan or Frame of Gov- ernment.
VIII. Provisions against the hasty enactment of laws of a public na- ture, and restriction of powers of the Governor and Council .- Sec. XIV of the Plan or Frame of Government.
IX. General Assembly to regulate fishing, &e .- Sec. XXXIX of Plan or Frame of Government.
X. Vermont substituted for Pennsylvania wherever it occurs.
AMENDMENTS OF 1786.
This Constitution was amended in several particulars by the Conven- tion holden at Manchester in June, 1786, the most important being the following :
Additional Section .- The legislative, executive and judiciary depart- ments shall be kept separate and distinct, so that neither exercise the powers properly belonging to the other.
Fourth Section of the Declaration of Rights .- The words "by their le- gal representatives" were added to the original section, so as to read as follows :
That the people, by their legal representatives, have the sole, exclu- sive, and inherent right of governing and regulating the internal po- lice of the same.
Fourteenth Section of the Plan or Frame of Government ..- A substi- tute was adopted [being Sec. 16 in the Constitution of 1793] in these words :
the committee to draft the Constitution. These were Jonas Fay, Thomas Chittenden, Heman Allen and Reuben Jones, all of whom, except Dr. Jones, were members of the Council of Safety, and would be likely to be present at the meeting in November when the Constitution was "com- piled" according to Mr. Allen's account above.
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To the end that laws, before they are enacted, may be more maturely considered, and the inconvenience of hasty determinations as much as possible preveuted, all bills which originate in the Assembly shall be laid before the Governor and Council, for their revision and concurrence or proposals of amendment ; who shall return the same to the Assembly with their proposals of amendment (if any) in writing ; and if the same are not agreed to by the Assembly, it shall be in the power of the Gov- ernor and Couneil to suspend the passage of such bills until the next session of the Legislature. Provided, that if the Governor and Couneil shall negleet or refuse to return any such bill to the Assembly, with writ- ten proposals of amendment, within five days, or before the rising of the Legislature, the same shall become a law.
AMENDMENTS, 1793 TO 1870.
The principal amendments in 1793 were four new sections, numbered 17, 18, 19, and 30, in the Constitution of 1793, severally providing that no money shall be drawn from the treasury unless first appropriated by act of legislature; that no person shall be eligible as representative until he has resided two years in the State, and one year in the town for which he is elected; that no member of the council or house of repre- sentatives shall, directly or indirectly, receive any fee or reward to bring forward or advocate any bill, &c., or advocate any cause as counsel in either house except when employed in behalf of the state; and no per- son shall be eligible as governor or lieutenant governor until he shall have resided in the state four years. ·
The text of the Constitution, as it was left by the amendments of 1793, has been preserved entire until this time, and unchanged except by such marks and references as have been required to indicate the effect of sub- sequent amendments, which have been appended to the Constitution of 1793, with necessary references. In order, therefore, to master in detail the various changes in the Constitution from the first, all that is neces- sary is a comparison of the original Constitution, in this volume follow- ing, with the existing Constitution and amendments above indicated, and those found in the General Statutes of Vermont, and in the Vt. Legis- lative Directory since 1870.
THE PREAMBLE.
The preamble was drafted in November, 1777, by IRA ALLEN, com- pleted on consultation with the Council of Safety, and adopted by the Windsor Convention at its session in December, 1777. It first disap- peared from the Vermont statute books in Haswell's compilation of 1791, and did not reappear until a very recent date in the Legislative Directory. The editor is of opinion that it was omitted from the statute book in 1791 without legal authority: that is, that it had never been rescinded by any formal vote in Convention. That the Convention of 1786 did not re- scind or annul the Preamble is evident first from a lack of any record of such an event, and second from the fact that the Preamble was published
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with the Constitution in the Revised Statutes of the succeeding year, 1787. The next Convention was in 1793, and no record appears of any action on the Preamble by that Convention, or by the Council of Censors which called it to pass upon the amendments that were proposed. It is known, however, that the Convention of 1793 transcended the ordinance that called it, and in fact in a considerable degree revamped the Con- stitution, without restoring the Preamble which had been omitted in 1791. As in the year 1790 the controversy with New York had been amicably settled, a generous courtesy doubtless dictated the suppression of a state document so distasteful to a reconciled foe, but still it seems to the editor that fidelity to history demands that the Preamble shall be preserved, and the facts as to its courteous suppression for much more than half a century should be recorded.
THE ORIGIN OF THE CONSTITUTION.
As the Constitution of Vermont was almost a copy, verbatim et litera- tim, of the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776, it will be at least a mat- ter of interest to all, and perhaps of surprise to many, to know that the origin of the essential and marked features of the instrument lies nearly a century further back, in " The Frame of the Government of the Prov- ince of Pennsylvania, in America," granted by WILLIAM PENN, with the authority of KING CHARLES THE SECOND, on the "five and twentieth day of the second month, vulgarly called April,1 in the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and eighty-two." DANIEL CHIPMAN recog- nized this fact. and gave copious extracts from Penn's " Frame."2 A selection from some of these extracts, and an abstract of others, will serve to show the close relation which Penn's "Frame of Government " bears to the "Plan or Frame of Government " of Vermont.
Imprimis, That the government of this province shall. according to the powers of the patent, consist of the Governor and freemen of the said province in form of a provincial Council. and general assembly, [Ver- mont's Governor, Council, and General Assembly,] by whom all laws shall be made, officers chosen, and public affairs transacted, as-is here- after respectively declared, that is to say-
II. That the freemen of the said province shall, on the twentieth day of the twelfth month which shall be in this present year, one thousand six hundred eighty and two, meet and assemble in some fit place, of which timely notice shall be beforehand given by the governor and his deputy ; and then and there shall choose out of themselves seventy-two persons of most note for their wisdom, virtue and ability, [the Vermont phrase for representative is, " most noted for wisdom and virtue,"] who shall meet on the tenth day of the first month next ensuing, and always be called, and act as, the provincial council of the said province.
1 March was the first month of the year among the Romans : and even in England, until 1752, the legal year began on the 26th of March.
2 Memoir of Thomas Chittenden, Chapter III.
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The Councillors were"divided into three classes of twenty-four each, one class being elected each year. The seventy-two Councillors were divided into four committees of eighteen, of which each class of Coun- cillors had three: to one committee being assigned plantations, cities, roads, posts and market-towns ; to another, justice and safety; to an- other, trade and treasury ; and to the fourth, manners, education and arts.
VI. That in this provincial Council, the governor or his deputy, shall or may always preside, and have a treble voice, and the said provincial Council shall always continue and sit upon its own adjournments and Committees.
In Vermont, the governor or lieutenant governor presided in the Council, and the Council sat upon its own adjournments, without regard to the General Assembly, and by its own committees, or jointly with the committees of the Assembly-most commonly the latter.
VII. That the governor and provincial council shall prepare and propose to the general assembly, hereafter mentioned, all bills, which they shall, at any time, think fit to be passed into laws, within the said province, which bills shall be published and affixed to the most noted places, in the inhabited parts thereof, thirty days before the meeting of the general assembly, in order to the passing them into laws, or reject- ing of them as the general assembly shall seem meet.
This was the practice of the Vermont Council at the outset, and the preparation of bills formed a large part of its business. By section XIV of the Plan or Frame of Government, no publie bill could be passed by the General Assembly until it had been printed for the consideration of the people and laid over until the next session of the General Assembly, which ordinarily would be after another election of representatives. Theoretically, therefore, no public bill could be passed until the people had first had an opportunity of examining it and instructing their repre- sentatives.
VIII. That the governor and provincial council shall take care that all laws, statutes and ordinances, which shall at any time be made within the said province, be duly and diligently executed.
In Vermont, the Governor and Council was "to take care that the laws be faithfully executed."-See Secs. III and XVIII of the Plan or Frame.
IX. That the governor and provincial council shall, at all times, have the care of the peace and safety of the province, and that nothing be by any person attempted to the subversion of this frame of government.
Here was the germ of the Vt. Council of Safety of 1777-8, and of the action of the Governor and Council, afterward, as a Council of Safety.
XII. That the governor and provincial council shall ereet and order all public schools, and encourage and reward the authors of useful sciences and laudable inventions in the said province.
In Vermont the duty of providing schools was put upon the "legisla- ture" instead of the governor and council alone, and the grades of schools
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were specified, viz : common schools, grammar sehools, and a university. -- See See. XL of Plan or Frame.
XIV. And, to the end that all laws prepared by the governor and provincial council aforesaid, may yet have the more full concurrence of the freemen of the province, it is declared, granted and confirmed. that at the time and place or places for the choice of a provincial council, as aforesaid, the said freemen shall yearly choose members to serve in a general assembly, as their representatives, not exceeding two hundred persons, who shall yearly meet, &c., [with the governor and council,] and on the ninth day from their so meeting, the said general assembly, after reading over the proposed bills by the elerk of the couneil, and the oceasions and motives for them being opened by the governor or his dep- uty, shall give their affirmative or negative, which to them seemeth best, in such manner as herein after is expressed. But not less than two- thirds shall make a quorum in the passing of laws, and choice of such officers as are by them to be chosen.
Here is the germ of the annual election and session of the Vermont General Assembly. It is a fact that Penn's mode of procedure was fre- quently imitated in Vermont, the Governor and Council meeting and advising with the House or General Assembly on important occasions. In one instance, Gov. Chittenden himself introduced a bill to the House -- a bill to establish Chittenden County.
XV. That the laws so prepared and proposed, as aforesaid, that are assented to by the general assembly, shall be enrolled as laws of the province, with this style : " By the governor, with the assent and appro- bation of the freemen in provincial council and general assembly."
In Vermont, "by the Representatives of the Freemen of the State of Vermont, in general assembly met, and by authority of the same." See Sec. xv of the Plan or Frame.
XIX. That the general assembly shall continue as long as may be useful to impeach criminals, fit to be there impeached, to pass bills into laws, and till such time as the governor and provincial council shall de- elare that they have nothing further to propose unto them, for their as- sent and approbation ; and that declaration shall be a dismiss to the general assembly for that time, which general assembly shall be, not- withstanding, capable of assembling together upon the sunimons of the provincial council, at any time during the year. if the said provincial Council shall see occasion for their so assembling.
In Vermont, the Council and Assembly adjourned without day by agreement ; but the custom was and is for each house to inquire whether the governor has any further business to communicate. Special ses- sions of the assembly were called by the Governor and Council under the first Constitution-and are by the governor now .- See Sec. XVIII of the Plan or Frame of the first Constitution ; but 8 of the amendments to the present Constitution, which covers Sec. 11 of the Constitution of 1793.
XX. That all the elections of members. or representatives of the people, to serve in provincial council and general assembly, and all ques- tions to be determined by both, or either of them, that relate to passing of bills into laws, to the choice of officers, to impeachments by the pro- vincial council, and to all the cases by them respectively judged of im-
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portance, shall be resolved and determined by the ballot ; and unless on sudden and indispensable occasions, no business in provincial council or its respective committees, shall be finally determined the same day that it is moved.
See Constitution of Vermont, "Plan or Frame of Government," Sec- tions XIII and XXIX, and the rules of the present Senate and House as to the third reading of bills.
XXIII. That no act, law, or ordinance, whatsoever, shall at any time, hereafter, be made or done by the governor of this province, his heirs or assigns, to alter, change, or diminish the form or effect of this charter, or any part or clause thereof, or contrary to the true intent and mean- ing thereof, without the consent of the governor, his heirs or assigns, and six parts of seven of the said freemen in provincial council or general assembly.
Widely different in form as is the forty-fourth section of the Vermont Plan or Frame, yet in it are distinct traces of the foregoing. Vermont required the assent first of a council specially elected, (the Council of Censors,) instead of the Governor and Council, and finally of the free- men through a general assembly specially elected, (the Convention,) in- stead of the legislative assembly. A majority of the Convention could adopt changes, instead of six sevenths being required as in Pennsyl- vania ; but the six sevenths feature is recognized nevertheless, for in Vermont no amendment could even be proposed in six years out of seven .- See Sec. XLIV of the Plan or Frame.
Of course there were some and wide differences in the details of the two plans of government-a chief one being in the tenure of the office of governor, being in Vermont elective annually, and in Pennsylvania for life, not elective but hereditary ; but many strong family resem- blances between the two are obvious. Whatever our judgment now may be-doubtless for the most part it is, like that of JOHN ADAMS, NATHANIEL and DANIEL CHIPMAN, unfavorable, when comparing the old system of one supreme legislative body with two different branches of co-ordinate powers now in vogue,-it is nevertheless certainly true that Vermont was governed well and commanded the respect of other states, under the gentle wings of the good Quaker and great philosopher of Pennsylvania, WILLIAM PENN and BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, who were the real authors of remarkable features in the first Constitution of Ver mont.
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