The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1893-06-16
VERMONTS INSPIRING HISTORY.

| v EhMON hIO lOh L.
The Brattleboro Reformer of last week
says editorially: Mr.. Martins Memorial
Day address is so full of good thought
and sentiment, so suggestive and in
instructive along important lines, that
we feel constrained to publish it IN full.
Besides the healthy Americanism that
permeates the whole of it, besides the
reverent appreciation it breathes of the
great work wrought out for this age by
the blood and sacrifices of the veterans
of the union,i strikes out in line sim
| gularly appropriate to the occasion in
tracing the connection, the ancestry and
the influences that made the valor of the
| Vermont troops of 1S61-5 back to the
| fathers of Vermont. 1t is rich and in
structive field of history, and one we
have been too prone to neglect of late
| years, that he touched SO interestingly.
We VermonteTs have a right to feel
proud of our past The facts justify
Mr.. Martin when he says that there was
a race of men among these hills and
mountains a century ago that in courage
and conduct, in original creative power in
the realm of politics and sociology, have
not had their superiors in the worlds
history.
1t is wonderful story. this of the
Chittendens, Aliens and Warmers, the
Fays, Robinsons and Fassetts, the Chip
mans, Tichenors and Bradleys, who be-
ginning their fight when there were not
over 300 families in the State and with
not over 10000 people in iG to the end,
boldly defed the power of New York
and Great Britain at once, shed the first
blood of the Revolution at Westminster,
struck the first great offensive blow for
America in the capture of TiconderOga,
led in preparing and organizing, as the
most rebellious people on the CONT
nent," as Bugoyne described them, the
blow that brought ruin to that officer
and his expedition, and even as Bur-
gOyne's hosts we're apparently pouring
resistlessly down the lake, promulgated
the constitution that established the
purest democracy the world had then
ever seen, that vas the pioneer in abol-
ishing slavery, and that will stand to
the end of time as monument to the
sagacity, the far reaching wisdom, the
high and clear thinking of the assem-
blaGe of plain farmers that framed it.
The surprising shrewdness or these
men, when New York, New Hampshire,
and perhaps Massachusetts were all
scheming to grab their territory, and in
triguing to create division between the
east and west side, when congress after
all its vacillation, sought to force them
to submission to New York, while
British army of 1000 men lowered on the
northern border, by withdrawing every
means of defense from the state, even
the last camp kettle, and even at the very
time Warner and his regiment of Green
Mountain boys were fighting their coun-
try's battles in the continental army
the shrewdness with which these claims
were played off one against another,
New Hampshire and New York kept
hustling to keep their own people from
joining the new state" and the Brit
ish army kept useless over negotiations
through three campaigns, was equalled
only by the firmpess with which the
Vermonters chung to the revolutionary
cause. While almost overwhelmed with
these difficulties, they established their
little republic that endured in indepen-
dence for IA years, more firm and steady
every year because it rested on bedrock
principles. They made it the most pros
porous, the lightest-taxed, the Eldorado
of immigration in that day, even while
the affairs of the rest of the country
we're at their lowest ebb They placed
in their legislation and jurisprudence
some of the best and most progressive
ideas of the age, like the "Quieting act"
of Gov. Chittenden's conception, or the
principle of referendum which is found
in Judge Chipman's device to avert
paper money act, such as brought disas-
ter to the other States, and whose rejec-
ton by vote of the people, when there
was no possibility of stopping it in any
other way in the legislature, was signal
proof of the great fact which is the bet
tom idea of all free government, that the
truth lies more safely with the MAORI
ties than anywhere else in human affairs.
So we might continue, if space per-
mitted. 1t is an inspiring tale that we
never ought to tire in telling the children
| of Vermont.