Sep 17, 2015 - Sale 2391

Sale 2391 - Lot 340

Price Realized: $ 2,860
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
(VERMONT.) Unpublished report of a Congressional committee on Vermont statehood. 4 manuscript pages in an unknown hand, 13 1/4 x 8 1/4 inches, on one folding sheet; partial separations at folds, moderate edge wear with slight loss of text, apparently lacking one or more final pages. (MRS) [Philadelphia?], [7 January 1782?]
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On 20 August 1781, the Continental Congress granted Vermont statehood, but only if it relinquished its claims to lands on the east bank of the Hudson River and other disputed territory. When this overture failed to get a response, Congress appointed a committee led by Daniel Carroll to phrase the offer more strongly. This is the committee's report. It notes that "a full acknowledgement of their independence was either not fully understood by them, or rejected upon mistaken principles." The committee proposes terms to the government of Vermont: if they accept the proposed boundaries and ratify the Articles of Confederation, they "shall be acknowledged a free sovereign & independent state . . . & shall be considered as a component of the federal union." If they refuse these terms, they shall "utterly disclaim all pretensions to independence . . . and submit themselves peaceably & quietly to the laws & jurisdiction of the state of New Hampshire or of New York." Refusal will be considered "as a manifest intention of hostile designs against these United States, and that all former pretensions to and applications for independence were only a cover to those designs; that thereupon the troops of the United States be immediately employed to reduce them to obedience & subjection . . . and that the Commander in Chief of the Armies of the United States without delay or farther order carry this resolution into full execution and by martial law, bring to condign punishment such as prove refractory."
This resolution was laid before Continental Congress on 7 January 1782, but they never approved or rejected it, and George Washington was not asked to bring Vermont to "obedience & subjection" through "martial law." This report reminds us how tense this situation became, however. Vermont did not give up its independence for statehood until 1791. Provenance: American Book Auction, unknown date, lot 45.