Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1871-09-22
Slavery in Vermont and the Census
of l791.

Editor Of Free Press and Times
have noticed the article, and your CONNIE ITS
thereon, published in your daily Of the ! 2th
inst, in relation to the return Of slaves rom
Vermont on the census Of 1870, il which the
writer III J. T., under date If Sept. 9Th, 1871,
at Washington claims to have disoove red an
error or alteration in kad sesarns, by which
number of colored persons who were ref urned by
our deputy Marsha. as free blacks wee erased
and transferred to the list of slaves.
The above. article of II. J. r., was addressed
to the Tribune, and on its publication that
paper remarks ''Verm0nt is probably the only
portion of the revolutionary confederation, never
polluted with the tread of a slave" the truth
Of which remark the FREE Press indorses aud
proceeds to say
1.-The anthor Of the Chiitenden County Chapter
in Hemenway's Gazetteer, quot, the statement
that Vermont, by the census Of 1870, had sixteen
slaves, from Seybert's Statistical Annals. and
slludes to it as shumiiiatiHg fact The state
ment, however, by whomsoeyer made, has never
much troub ed the Vermonters who happened TO
remember the unonestioned fact, that the first
Constitution of Vermont, adopted in l777, and
every Subsequent constitution, prohibited Sid-
gery in express terms; declaring 4" that all men
are borne equally free sni independent" &c,
and that under the fundamental law Of the State,
from its first existence as separate common
wealth. it was thus impossible that any person
could be held a slave
Now the author Of the County ChsI ter gratu;-
tously noticed shove, desires to be informed
by the editor of the FREE PREss, whether the
constitution Of Vermont was received by Con-
gress as a legal document until her cOntro-
versy with New York was settled, and she was
recognized as a separate and independent COM
nonweslth which recognition was not fully
made by the general government, until February
let 1871, when she was received q separate
jurisdiction, and an act passed to provide for
her admission into the Union as a State?
What moreover, was the status Of the '.Iazr :.
who had emigrs;ed with their msstszs + ON
Massachusetts, and Connecticut and hSat with
them here as Acknowledged slaves, snior to the
adoption Of the old constitution IL. M D., Was
not the soil Of Vermont then polluted " their
tread And did the general govern aept. or
any State OF the Union. admit that ts previous
coalition Of slavery wa, changed By cur consti-
tuition, until that document was knoTledged
as the organic lev Of VermGrs and she ac-
cepted as a new and independents State?
What prOpristy, then, is the9e in the remark Of
the Tribune, Endorsed by the II .EE Pass. that
lie soil Of Vermont was never polluted BIZ the
ue2a ola slAYet" Indeed, loes not the above
view Of the case seem 10 accJ mt for the change
made in the original retuu IS from this Stste,
on the census OF 1871 Did not our deputy
Marshal, looking to his ow State constitution.
return the blacks as free but the authorities
of Washington, looking upon such copstitu-
sion as void, and denying the exist snce Of our
State u such, refuse to eceiye then as free. and
thereupOn plsoe them on the list of slaves :;
treating then the same as they did the slaves of
New York;
II quoting fact Of history from official
records Of eighty years ''tsnding, g. I'd not dis
proved, but. as H. J. L. snys, i"sc knovledsed
BY all works on slavery" | have col united An
error. it does not follow that the Z ribune or