National opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1865-1874, 1870-07-08
Then AND NOsc.

essentially different moods of a can
didate for office before and after
election but nowhere have we ever
seen the principle involved so forci-
bly, illustrated as in the last WO-
mans Journal, in reviewing the do
ings of our late Constitutional Con
ventiOn.
1t will be remembered that, at the
opening of the late woman suffrage
campaign in this Slate, this same
journal, then in blissfully hopeful
and patronizing mood, paid the fol
lowing tribute to the people of Yer.
mont:
1T is probable that nowhere in the
United States can community be
found so well prepared to take this
great browning step in Political
progress as is the State of Vermont.
More than four.fifths of her people
are of native birth. They have been
trained in an efficient school system
Of free schools, where boys and girls
have been educated together.
Churches and Sunday schools exist
all over the State. There are fewe
oilers and stragglers than else
where. There are no large manu-
featuring towns and cities, no ex.
tremes of wealth and poverty. The
people are mostly intelligent farmers
and their families, tilling their own
land and calling no man master
Probably no equal number of people
in the world read more and think
more than they. During the long,
frosty winter nights, by the cheerful
light of their great wood fires, books
aud newspapers are among the
necessaries of life. Moreover her
people have been reared in the
traditions of liberty. No slave ever
breathed the elastic air of her hills
Men and women have learned the
invaluable lesson of self help. They
know how to respect the rights o
others and maintain their own
But the action of our late Con
vention seems to have changed all
this, and the same journal, in it,
last issue, vituperates as follows:
'The Vermont Constitutions
Convention has rejected a propO
sitiOn to give the ballot to woman
by q vote of 23l to 1. They hOutet
all discussion of the question, an,
voted it down with the utmost alac
rity. No one cOgnizant of the big
Otry, narrOwness and general ignor
ance that prevail in Vermont vii
be surprised at this result. 1t is not
q progressive State, but the contra
~. Great stress has been laid OF
the fact that y ermont never owne,
. slave, '--and from this it is argu
ed that the Granite State is and ha
been especially liberty loving. Blu
during the two brief visits we mad
to the State last winter, We wer
told again and again, by the Vel
mont men, that the only reason fol
the non introduction of slavery wa
the impracticability of that form @
labor among the Green Mountains
that slavery could never have bee
made profitable there, and that THU
and not principle, and heroic love ,
freedom, prevented Vermont froI
becoming slave State.
Nowhere, not even in the roug
est and rcmotcst West, have "
met with such vulgar rudeness,
manners and heroic lying, as v
encountered In Vermont. The lee
urers who were invited into Il
State by the Vermont Woman ST
frage Association, composed Who'll
Of men, were in man, instances !,
unsupported by them, all wed
meet the frequently rough audienc
"a best they could. to pay their o,
bills, and to manage the campai
M they might at the very first in
nation Of opposition on the part
the Montpelier Argus and " at,
man, aud the Burlington Free Pr,
AN unworthy trio of papers Il
appear to control tie majorit,
many members of the State Ass,
alton showed the white fcatl
and either alphabetically hacl
cut Of the canvass OF ignominiou
kept silent In the back grou
There was therefore nothing lik'
thorough discussion Of the quest
10 fair meeting of truth and or
not even an attempt to canvass
State. For, not ambitious to ",
their efforts on such iiinty soil,
,Dep aud women who were inv
To labor there shook of the ,
(snOw) Of Vermont from their