Vermont was born of struggle and grit, first against its rugged Appalachian mountain landscape and bitter winters, and then as a pawn between the territorial aspirations of New Hampshire and New York. Little known is how profoundly Vermont served the nation as a frontline antagonist against the British in the Revolutionary War, as a champion of the abolitionist movement, and as a leading contingent in the military conquest of the South in the Civil War. Self-styled as the Brave Little State, Vermont has a history of fighting for independence, which should be an inspiration to a nation today torn by declining patriotism and divisive partisanship.
Vermont’s Liberty Beginnings
Vermont lagged behind the original 13 colonies in achieving statehood – it became the 14th state in 1791 – but the Green Mountain State was a leader in fully embracing liberty. On July 8, 1777, Vermont created its first constitution, banning slavery in the province decades before the nation, or any other state, did so, and even before gaining its statehood.
In the 1700s, Vermont (then called New Connecticut) was primarily populated by subsistence farmers seeking land and the freedom to live without government oppression. Squeezed between border wars while eking out a meager provision of basic needs, its residents were primed for rebellion against the British in the Revolutionary War. The hardcore Green Mountain Boys, led by the pugnacious Ethan Allen, had been formed as a militia in 1770 to defend the rights of private landowners. Following the “shot heard around the world” on April 19, 1775, at the skirmish between British soldiers and resistant colonists at Lexington and Concord, it was Allen and his plucky band who soon achieved the first rebel victory of the American Revolutionary War at Fort Ticonderoga, NY.
The Green Mountain Boys jumped at the opportunity to oppose the British. On May 10, 1777, about a hundred Vermonters under the strained leadership of Allen and Benedict Arnold crossed Lake Champlain to inflict a dawn raid on a British fort. News of their success inspired a nascent nation facing off against the world's most accomplished military power. More important than taking the symbolic site of British power may have been the arduous task of transporting its fort artillery through the rugged Vermont wilderness to Boston, where the British experienced their own cannons turned against them in their effort to dominate the city.
Vermont and the Civil War
The Green Mountain Boys featured later in the Battle of Hubbardton on July 7, 1777, which inflicted heavy losses on the British forces seeking to capture Albany, NY. Vermont was also the site of a significant British defeat in the Battle of Bennington on Aug. 16, 1777 (led by John Stark and the New Hampshire militia). Without Vermont’s valiant contribution early in the conflict, the United States might not have achieved its independence from Great Britain.
Vermont carried on this valiant tradition of supporting liberty in the Civil War. Its legislature was a strident opponent of slavery leading up to the conflict, and Vermonters featured in numerous battles. More than 32,000 – one-tenth of its entire population – fought on the Union side, incurring more than 5,000 deaths. Vermont actively supported the Underground Railroad and contributed 152 black soldiers (out of a total black population of 709) to the war effort. On July 4, 1863, Vermont soldiers engaged in battle at Gettysburg, yet again displaying valor on the date that today commemorates independence as a fundamental national value.
The history of American independence is inextricably linked to the spirit of determination and willingness to fight and sacrifice exhibited consistently by Green Mountain denizens. Vermont was deeply involved in the abolitionist movement and the national effort to prohibit slavery in all its forms. This moral cause stemmed from the spiritual values of faith common to American colonists, but which are declining in today’s increasingly secular nation.
Faith and Independence
Vermonter Calvin Coolidge was born on July 4, 1872. As president on the 150th birthday of the nation in 1926, Coolidge proclaimed the importance of the spiritual virtues that founded and continue to bolster the independence and liberties of the American nation:
“We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create our Declaration. Our Declaration created them. The things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to that, all our material prosperity, overwhelming though it may appear, will turn to a barren sceptre in our grasp. If we are to maintain the great heritage which has been bequeathed to us, we must be like-minded as the fathers who created it. We must not sink into a pagan materialism. We must cultivate the reverence which they had for the things that are holy. We must follow the spiritual and moral leadership which they showed. We must keep replenished, that they may glow with a more compelling flame, the altar fires before which they worshipped.”
In 21st-century America, there is a new battle raging over whether America was founded as a Christian nation. Ironically, given its historical traditions and pre-eminence in preserving independence not just from foreign rule but for individuals, Vermont is now one of the most secular states in the country. Yet the words of Coolidge remain true, and the effort to rewrite history to exclude the central role of religious faith is nullified by Vermont’s constitution, which still today provides:
“That all persons have a natural and unalienable right, to worship Almighty God, according to the dictates of their own consciences and understandings, as in their opinion shall be regulated by the word of God. ... Nevertheless, every sect or denomination of christians ought to observe the sabbath or Lord’s day, and keep up some sort of religious worship, which to them shall seem most agreeable to the revealed will of God.”
On this Independence Day 2025, may God bless Vermont and America! Let us recall the sacrifices and faith traditions that have made our enduring liberties possible.
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