Editing Vermont (section)

===Admission to the Union===

{{Main|Admission to the Union|List of U.S. states by date of admission to the Union}}
[[File:VTadmissionAct.JPG|thumb|right|1791 [[Act of Congress]] admitting Vermont into the Union]]

Vermont continued to govern itself as a sovereign entity based in the eastern town of [[Windsor, Vermont|Windsor]] for 14 years. The independent state of Vermont issued its own coinage from 1785 to 1788 and operated a national postal service.<ref>{{Citation |last=Bucholt |first=Margaret |title=An Insider's Guide to Southern Vermont |url=http://www.manchestervermont.net/about.php |year=1991 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131206163302/http://www.manchestervermont.net/about.php |url-status=dead |contribution=Manchester and the Mountains Chamber of Commerce |publisher=Penguin |archive-date=December 6, 2013}}</ref> [[Thomas Chittenden]] was the Governor in 1778–1789 and in 1790–1791.

Because the state of New York continued to assert that Vermont was a part of New York, Vermont could not be [[admission to the Union|admitted to the Union]] under Article IV, Section{{nbsp}}3 of the Constitution until the legislature of New York consented. On March 6, 1790, the legislature made its consent contingent upon a negotiated agreement on the precise boundary between the two states. When commissioners from New York and Vermont met to decide on the boundary, Vermont's negotiators insisted on also settling the property ownership disputes with New Yorkers, rather than leaving that decision to a federal court.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mello |first=Robert A. |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/875404347 |title=Moses Robinson and the founding of Vermont |year=2014 |isbn=978-0-934720-65-6 |pages=260 |publisher=Vermont Historical Society |oclc=875404347}}</ref> The negotiations were successfully concluded in October 1790 with an agreement that Vermont would pay $30,000 to New York to be distributed among New Yorkers who claimed land in Vermont under New York land patents.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mello |first=Robert A. |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/875404347 |title=Moses Robinson and the founding of Vermont |year=2014 |isbn=978-0-934720-65-6 |pages=264 |publisher=Vermont Historical Society |oclc=875404347}}</ref> In January 1791, a convention in Vermont voted 105–4<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mello |first=Robert A. |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/875404347 |title=Moses Robinson and the founding of Vermont |year=2014 |isbn=978-0-934720-65-6 |pages=270–271 |publisher=Vermont Historical Society |oclc=875404347}}</ref> to petition Congress to become a state in the federal union. Congress acted on February 18, 1791, to admit Vermont to the Union as the 14th state as of March 4, 1791; two weeks earlier on February 4, 1791, Congress had decided to admit Kentucky as the 15th state as of June 1, 1792.<ref>{{cite web|last=First Congress|first=Third Session|title=An Act for the admission of the State of Vermont into this Union|website=The Avalon Project|publisher=Yale Law School|date=February 18, 1791|url=http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/vt03.asp| access-date = November 24, 2014}}</ref> Vermont became the first state to enter the Union after the original 13 states. The revised constitution of 1786, which established a greater separation of powers, continued in effect until 1793, two years after Vermont's admission to the Union.

Under the Act "To Secure Freedom to All Persons Within This State,"<ref>{{cite web|title=An Act To Secure Freedom to All Persons Within This State|url=https://archive.org/details/dutyofdisobedien00chil|website=Internet Archive|date=1860 |access-date=July 31, 2024}}</ref> slavery was officially outlawed by state law on November 25, 1858, less than three years before the [[American Civil War]].<ref>[http://www.bartonchronicle.com/index.php/reviews/books/110-asurpriseoneverypage Barton Chronicle book review]. Retrieved August 21, 2009. {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090510020229/http://www.bartonchronicle.com/index.php/reviews/books/110-asurpriseoneverypage |date=May 10, 2009 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Child|first=Lydia Maria|title=The Duty of Civil Disobedience to the Fugitive Slave Act: An Appeal to the Legislators of Massachusetts|year=1860|publisher=American Anti-Slavery Society|location=Boston|pages=Anti–Slavery Tracts No. 9, 36}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Bunch|first=Lonnie|title=Vermont 1777: Early Steps Against Slavery|url=http://go.si.edu/site/MessageViewer?em_id=15241.0&dlv_id=17582|publisher=Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture|access-date=February 12, 2014}}</ref> Vermonters provided refuge at several sites for escaped slaves fleeing to Canada, as part of the [[Underground Railroad]].<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1995/06/25/travel/travel-advisory-underground-railroad-vermont-sites-to-open.html|title=Underground Railroad: Vermont Sites to Open|date=June 25, 1995|website=The New York Times}}</ref>