Black History Month – 1977 Vermont Outlaws Slavery
On July 2, 1777, answering the calls of abolitionists to end slavery, Vermont became the first colony to ban slavery and went a step further in providing full voting rights for African American males as part of the new independent country of Vermont. The Vermont constitution read in part:
no male person, born in this country, or brought from over sea, ought to be holden by law, to serve 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 wasadmitted to the Union as the fourteenth state in 1791. Vermont’s admission to the Union made the state subject to the Fugitive Slave Clause of the Constitution of the United States (Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3) requiring fugitive slaves fleeing into a state whose laws forbid slavery to be returned. Later the state was subject to the Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850, allowing slave owners to recover fugitive slaves who fled to Vermont.
All slavery was finally abolished in Vermont in 1858 when the “Freedom Act” was ratified declaring that any slave brought into Vermont, was free. Some Vermonters say the language in the state’s Constitution still allows for slavery. So, now Prop 2 passed by the legislature and sent to the Governor and the ballot would amend the Vermont constitution further. Amending theVermont Constitution is an intentionally lengthy process that takes about four years. The current language in Article 1 is lengthy but says slavery is prohibited up to the age of 21 and afterwards if a debt or fine is owed. Many feel that unfairly impacts those in the state’s correctional system, suggesting the allowance of prison labor. The change would strike the current language to say slavery and indentured servitude in any form are prohibited.
Nevertheless, Vermont has the historical distinction of the first of the colonies to outlaw slavery and setting the stage for other northern colonies and states to do likewise.
