What is the Second Vermont Republic?

The Second Vermont Republic is a nonviolent citizens’ network and think tank committed to the return of Vermont to its rightful status as an independent republic as it once was between 1777 and 1791 and more broadly to the dissolution of the Union.

What is the primary objective of the movement?

Independence. To extricate Vermont peacefully, legally, and democratically from the United States as soon as possible.

Does that mean secession?

Yes.

Why does Vermont want to secede?

First, the United States suffers from imperial overstretch and has become unsustainable politically, economically, agriculturally, socially, culturally, and environmentally. Second, Vermont finds it increasingly difficult to protect itself from the debilitating effects of big business, big agriculture, big markets, and big government, who want all of us to be the same-just like they are. Third, the United States government has lost its moral authority because it is owned, operated, and controlled by Wall Street and Corporate America. Fourth, American foreign policy, which is based on the doctrine of full spectrum dominance, is immoral, illegal, unconstitutional, and in violation of the United Nations charter. Fifth, as long as Vermont remains in the Union its citizens face curtailed civil liberties, the risk of terrorist attack, and the risk of the conscription of its youth. Sixth, our government supports multitrillion dollar budget deficits, endless Wall Street bailouts, corporate greed and fraud, environmental degradation, dependence on imported oil, and a culture of deceit.

But isn’t secession unconstitutional?

Absolutely not. “Whenever any form of government becomes destructive, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government,” said Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence. Just as a group has a right to form, so too does it have a right to disband, to subdivide itself, or withdraw from a larger unit. The U.S. Constitution does not forbid secession. According to the tenth amendment, that which is not expressly prohibited by the Constitution is allowed. All states have a Constitutional right to secede.

Besides independence, what other principles does SVR subscribe to?

Living life on a human scale; sustainability in all aspects of life; economic solidarity; shared political power and devolution of government back to the people; equal access to health care, education, housing, and employment for all Vermonters; tension reduction and non-violence; and a strong sense of community.

Does the Second Vermont Republic want to take over the government of Vermont?

Absolutely not. The people of the independent republic of Vermont will decide how it is governed. Unlike the Free State Project in New Hampshire, our aim is not to take over the government.

Could Vermont survive economically as an independent nation-state?

Yes! Of the 200 or so independent nation-states in the world, 50 of them have a smaller population than Vermont (pop. 623,000). Six of the ten richest countries in the world as measured by per capita income are smaller than Vermont. Political independence is not a synonym for economic and political isolation. Over 600 Vermont firms export nearly 24 percent of the State’s gross state product. We see no reason why this should change after independence.

Is Vermont independence politically feasible?

Yes. Ultimately whether or not Vermont achieves political independence is a question of political will. Is the will of the people of Vermont for independence strong enough to overcome the will of the U.S. government to prevent them from achieving their goal? In 1989 six Eastern European allies of the Soviet Union unseated their respective Communist governments and seceded from the Soviet sphere of influence. With the bloody exception of Romania, this all took place nonviolently. The Second Vermont Republic has been particularly influenced by the solidarity movement in Poland and Czechoslovak leader Vaclav Havel’s concept of the “power of the powerless.”

What are the steps to independence?

The Vermont Legislature must be persuaded to authorize a convention of the people to vote on rescinding the petition for statehood approved by the Vermont Assembly in January 1791 and ratified on March 4, 1791. To be credible the vote should pass by at least a two-thirds majority. Articles of Secession should then be submitted to the U.S. President, Secretary of State, President of the Senate, Speaker of the House, etc. Diplomatic recognition should be sought from Canada, Quebec, Mexico, England, France, and the United Nations. And then the moment of truth-Vermont would start behaving like an independent nation-state.

If we secede, what government will we have?

Currently, Vermont’s state government is one of the most centralized governments in the United States. While it is up to the citizens of Vermont to decide on this question, we encourage Vermonters to adopt some form of small “r” republican representative government that draws on aspects of both existing town and state governments in a new and more decentralized relationship. Vermont’s own constitution provides an excellent foundation upon which to build an independent small “r” republican government.

Will we have our own currency?

Again, the citizens of Vermont will decide on this question. One option is to link Vermont’s currency exchange with a larger existing regional system: the E.U.’s Euro or the Canadian “Loonie,” for example. Other options would be to create an independent Vermont currency or several local currencies. Still another option would be to return Vermont to the gold standard. A thoughtful exploration of all the currency options is already underway.

What about the financial help the federal government gives us for education, transportation, and other programs?

For every dollar paid by Vermonters for federal taxes, Vermont gets back only 75 cents in federal expenditures. That’s not a very good deal.

With all the current immigration challenges, what about our borders? Will people need passports to go in and out of Vermont?

Passports may indeed be a handy way of allowing for easy cross-border travel in the new republic. Vermont citizens must decide on how best to protect our new republic’s borders and how best to allow for an immigration policy that balances safety with accessible cross-border travel. There are no easy answers here, but we remain confident that Vermonters will come to a judicious decision about how best to proceed in this area.

What about my social security? My Medicaid and Medicare?

Established during the Great Depression of the 1930s by FDR’s “New Deal” policies, social security represents an individual contract between each U.S. citizen and the federal government. Thousands of Americans living overseas collect social security payments. It is mainly a question of whether or not the federal government will honor individual contracts once Vermont peaceably secedes from the United States. With regard to Medicaid and Medicare benefits, we envision Vermont citizens developing a more decentralized and local alternative to the existing system. What it will look like will be up to Vermont citizens to decide.

Will our taxes be lower?

A family of three earning $50,000 per year would save $6,330 annually, if Vermont were an independent republic ($750 in income taxes and $5,580 in its pro rata share of the federal deficit).

What if Vermont independence fails?

Vermont still provides a communitarian alternative to the dehumanized, mass production, mass consumption, narcissistic lifestyle which pervades most of the United States. Vermont is smaller, more rural, more democratic, less violent, less commercial, more egalitarian, and more independent than most states. It offers itself as a kinder, gentler metaphor for a nation obsessed with money, power, size, speed, greed, and fear of terrorism.

How can I get involved with SVR?

Visit our website: www.vermontrepublic.org. You can also contact us at PO Box 544, Charlotte, VT 05445, or 802-425-4133.

“Tom Paine for the 21st century. A surprisingly compelling argument for applying the small-is-beautiful philosophy to the United States itself.”
–Jay Walljasper
Editor of Ode magazine

“I must assure you of my pleasure in, and approval of. . . the Second Vermont Republic. The assertion by Vermonters of a sensible foreign policy is wonderfully to the good. You have my agreement and my admiration.”
–John Kenneth Galbraith
Harvard Economist

“In the idea of the three American states’ ultimate independence, whether separately or in union, I see nothing fanciful, and nothing towards the realization of which the efforts of enlightened people might not be usefully directed. It is, to my mind, neither fanciful or unjustified for us to hold in mind at this time the whole problem of the future development of the relationship with the northern parts of this country and their immediate Canadian neighbors.”
–George F. Kennan
Former Ambassador to Russia
and Professor, Institute for
Advanced Studies, Princeton

“. . . a serious examination of our God given right of self governance and that right’s implication for secession . . . a persuasive case of the identical response to today’s ‘train of abuses’ that led the Founders to secede from King George’s tyranny.”
–Walter E. Williams
John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics,
George Mason University

“In 1991 the Soviet Union was peacefully dissolved by the secession of 15 states. It had become simply too large and centralized. So has the American Union. Thoughtful people from every side of the political spectrum are beginning to realize that the only check to the tyranny, insecurity, and spirit numbing mass culture that continued centralization would bring is to seriously consider breaking the American empire up into alternative unions and/or smaller polities. . . . a compelling case that little Vermont would be better off out of the Union.”
–Donald Livingston
Professor of Philosophy,
Emory University

“. . . a powerful case for an independent Vermont. I think folks may soon be ready to consider this kind of wise and humane radicalism.”
–Bill Kauffman
Author of Look Homeward, America

“. . . a serious case for an independent Vermont, a Second Vermont Republic that could immediately enter the world of nations and thereby begin the peaceful, democratic, and indeed moral process of disuniting the United States.”
–Frank Bryan
University of Vermont Professor
And Author of Real Democracy

“From the standpoint of puppeteers and their subversive papier-mâché, the Vermont Second Republic sounds like a very good idea to fight the megalomania of the globalizers.”
–Peter Schumann
Founder, Bread & Puppet Theater

Thoughtful Vermonters, opposed to the tyranny of the United States government, corporate America, and globalization, believe that Vermont should once again become an independent republic as it was between 1777 and 1791.

First, we find it increasingly difficult to protect ourselves from the debilitating effects of big government, big business, big markets, and big agriculture, who want all of us to be the same and to love bigness as much as they do.

Second, in addition to being too big, our government is too centralized, too powerful, too intrusive, too materialistic, and too unresponsive to the needs of individual citizens and small communities.

Third, the U.S. government has lost its moral authority because it is owned, operated, and controlled by corporate America. National and Congressional elections are bought and sold to the highest bidders.

Fourth, we have a single political party, the Republican Party, disguised as a two-party system. The Democratic Party is effectively brain dead, having had no new ideas since the 1960s.

Fifth, we have become disillusioned with the so-called American way—corporate greed, the war on terrorism, homeland security, the denial of civil liberties, pandering to the rich and powerful, environmental insensitivity and the culture of deceit.

Sixth, American foreign policy, which is based on the doctrine of full spectrum dominance, is immoral, illegal, unconstitutional, and in violation of the United Nations Charter.

Seventh, as long as Vermont remains in the Union, we face the risk of terrorist attack and military conscription of our youth.

Eighth, the U.S. suffers from imperial overstretch and has become unsustainable politically, economically, agriculturally, socially, culturally, and environmentally. It has become both ungovernable and unfixable.

“Whenever any form of government becomes destructive,…it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness,” said Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence. Just as a group has a right to form, so too does it have a right to disband, to subdivide itself, or to withdraw from a larger unit.
Vermont is smaller, more rural, more democratic, less violent, less commercial, more egalitarian, more humane, more independent, and more radical than most states. It provides a communitarian alternative to the dehumanized, mass production, mass consumption, narcissistic lifestyle which pervades most of America.

Fundamental to what it means to be a Vermonter is the right of self-preservation. The time has come for us peacefully to rebel against the American Empire by (1) regaining control of our lives from big government, big business, big cities, big schools, and big computer networks; (2) relearning how to take care of ourselves by decentralizing, downsizing, localizing, demilitarizing, simplifying, and humanizing our lives; and (3) learning how to help others take care of themselves.

This is a call for Vermont to reclaim its soul—to return to its rightful status as an independent republic. In so doing, Vermont can provide a kinder, gentler model for a nation obsessed with money, power, size, speed, greed, and fear of terrorism.

Long live the Second Vermont Republic! If you live in Vermont, come join us. If you live outside Vermont, please support us, and please feel free to consider the possibility of starting your own independence movement as well.

A Declaration of Independence by the People of the
Sovereign State of Vermont

“When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and mankind entitle them,” let them declare “the causes which impel them to the separation.”

“We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable; that all men are created equal and independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations” evinces a design to compromise their sovereignty and to mandate their complicity in the building of empire, in oppression and exploitation throughout the world, and in the suppression of the rights of individuals, societies, tribes and nations, “it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future.”

Let the reasons for Vermont independence be submitted openly before the world.

Vermont is small, rural, democratic, peaceful, communitarian, egalitarian, and independent. Vermont has suffered, as have other states, from the debilitating effects of big business, big government, and big agriculture. Its people have seen big markets deliver inferior goods and produce. They have been burdened with technology that is inappropriate to their needs.

Since Vermont became the fourteenth state of the Union, the United States government has become too big, too centralized, too powerful, too intrusive, too materialistic, too impersonal, too grasping, too militarized, too imperialistic, too violent, too undemocratic, too corrupt, and too unresponsive to the needs of individual citizens and small communities. National and Congressional elections are sold to the highest bidder. State and local governments assume too little responsibility for the well-being of their citizens – too often abdicating their responsibilities to Washington.

The free people of Vermont have reached a turning point: whether to fight for “liberty and justice” or to trade in their heritage for the shackles known as progress. It is not progress. It is comfort. It is an illusion.

We, the people, here assembled choose “liberty and justice,” and we reject a system of intrusive federal control that is antithetical to a prosperous way of life, and to the well being of a sovereign state.

Fundamental to liberty, statehood and citizenship is the right to self-preservation. This right includes the obligation of each sovereign state to protect is citizens from the oppressive, harmful, or unlawful policies of the federal government. To wit:

First, the United States is no longer a sustainable nation-state: not politically, economically, agriculturally, socially, morally, culturally, nor environmentally.

Second, Vermont has been dragged into the quagmire of affluenza, technomania, megalomania, globalization, and imperialism by the U.S. government in collaboration with corporate America.

Third, the U.S. government provides Vermont with little protection from the ills of globalization including economic uncertainly, unemployment, environmental degradation, and the loss of sovereignty, political will, and cultural identity.

Fourth, the federal government is using its “war on terrorism” to undermine constitutionally guaranteed liberties.

Fifth, the U.S. government’s unprovoked, unilateral, pre-emptive attacks on nations with which it disagrees such as Afghanistan, Grenada, Guatemala, Iraq, Nicaragua, Panama and Serbia are unconstitutional and in violation of the U.N. charter and international law.

Sixth, Vermont has no military bases, no strategic resources, few defense contractors, and no big cities, and is a threat to no one. However, as long as it remains in the Union it runs the risk of attack, it must accept the military conscription of its youth, and it remains complicit in the most egregious violations of international law.

There is a moral, legal, and absolute imperative for an independent-minded Vermont to revert back to its rightful status as the independent republic it was between 1777 and 1791. This is a call for Vermont to reclaim its soul, and, in so doing, provide an alternative to a nation obsessed with money, power, size, speed and greed. It is a call to reject the fear of terrorism. Let us secure our future with the skills and strengths of our past, our ingenuity and our self reliance.

Our founders Thomas Jefferson and James Madison held that the U.S. Constitution was a compact of sovereign states which had delegated specific powers, but not sovereignty, to a central government – powers which could be recalled. By international law, sovereignty cannot be surrendered by implication. It is surrendered only by an express act, and nowhere in the U.S. Constitution is there any express renunciation of sovereignty by the states. Each state was conceived and formed as sovereign, and, sovereign, each state remains.

According to the tenth amendment of the U.S. Constitution, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” That which is not expressly prohibited by the Constitution is, therefore, within the legal province of the individual states. And therefore all states have a constitutional right to leave the Union. Indeed, when the federal government usurps their sovereignty and becomes destructive to “the preservation of life, and liberty and the pursuit or happiness,” they have a constitutional duty to reclaim the independence in which they were formed.

Therefore, we the sovereign people of the state of Vermont, while affirming our allegiance to the principles expressed in the U.S. Constitution, do hereby declare our independence from the United States of America, and call upon the Vermont Legislature to authorize a convention of the people to vote on rescinding the petition for statehood approved by the Vermont Assembly in January 1791 and ratified by the Congress on March 4, 1791.

James R. Hogue, Thomas Naylor and, posthumously, Thomas Jefferson.

James R. Hogue, September 7, 2003

Few Americans realize that Vermont is hands down the most radical state in the Union in terms of its commitment to human solidarity, sustainability, direct democracy, and political independence, and it’s been that way for a very long time. With its 237 or so annual town meetings, the Green Mountain state is by far the most democratic state in America, ranking a close second behind Switzerland internationally.

Vermont’s radicalism can be traced back to 1777 when it first became an independent republic prior to joining the Union fourteen years later. Vermont was the only American state which truly invented itself before becoming a part of the United States. Unlike other New England states, Vermont was never an English colony, or any other kind of colony, thus avoiding a period of aristocratic oligarchy. Influenced by some of its earlier Iroquois and Yankee inhabitants, Vermont established an almost casteless society never to be replicated elsewhere in America.

Vermont was the first state to outlaw slavery in its constitution in 1777 and also the first to require universal manhood suffrage. By the 1830s, Vermont had the strongest abolitionist sentiment of any state in America. Vermonters were active participants in the “Underground Railroad” which helped runaway slaves find refuge in Canada. In 1858, in defiance of the Federal Fugitive Slave Law, Vermont freed all blacks who had been brought into the state.

As early as July 2, 1777, the Constitution of Vermont presciently anticipated the risks of the future military-industrial complex: “As standing armies in time of peace are dangers to liberty, they ought not be kept up; and the military should be kept under strict subordination to and governed by the civil power.” No major battle between European invaders and Native Americans ever took place in Vermont territory. Although Ethan Allen’s Green Mountain Boys had no love for New Yorkers or the British, both they and Allen himself managed to avoid ever killing anyone at Fort Ticonderoga or elsewhere – so the story goes. Only one minor skirmish occurred on Vermont soil during the American Revolution. The lone Civil War engagement fought in Vermont on October 18, 1864 in St. Albans was more like a Jesse James-style bank robbery carried out by a handful of Confederate soldiers. However, Vermont was the first state to send troops to fight in the Civil War. Half of the eligible men in Vermont served in the Union Army.

Even though Vermont has no death penalty and virtually no gun control laws, it is one of the least violent states in the Union. It also has no military bases, no strategic resources, and few military contractors. All three members of its Congressional delegation voted against the resolution authorizing military action against Iraq.

Vermont has the highest percentage of unpaved roads in the nation and was the first state to ban billboards alongside highways. It’s unique environmental law regulating real estate development, Act 250, was the first in the nation and remains one of the toughest.Vermont was the first state to pass a “bottle bill.” It kept Wal-Mart at bay longer than any other state, and Montpelier remains the only state capital in America without a McDonald’s restaurant.

Vermont always ranks near the top of the list of states who treat women and children well. Its Civil Union law was the first in the nation. Thanks to Mayor Peter Clavelle, employees of the City of Burlington will soon be able to purchase prescription drugs from Canada in spite of opposition from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Ultimately, secession represents the most radical form of peaceful rejection of the policies of the U.S. Government. Vermont is home to one of the most sophisticated political independence movements in the country today. But there is nothing new about Vermont’s secession movement. As far back as January 5, 1815, Vermont joined other New England states in signing the report of the so-called Hartford Convention in opposition to the proposal of the U.S. Secretary of War to implement a military draft for continuing the mismanaged War of 1812 with England. This report was, in fact, a declaration of secession.

In 1973, Chicago-based economist David Hale, who grew up in St. Johnsbury, called for Vermont independence in a provocative piece in The Stowe Reporter entitled “The Republic of Vermont: A Modest Proposal.” University of Vermont Professor Frank Bryan and State Representative Bill Mares dubbed Hale “the patron saint of Vermont secession,” in their 1987 book Out! The Vermont Secession Book. Then in a January 6, 2004 piece in The Burlington Free Press Hale proposed that Vermont rejoin the British Commonwealth.

As part of Vermont’s bicentennial celebration in 1990, Frank Bryan and Vermont Supreme Court Justice John Dooley debated the pros and cons of Vermont leaving the Union in seven different Vermont towns. After each debate a vote was taken and all seven towns voted in favor of secession. A few years earlier when Ronald Reagan was still president, over 180 Vermont towns voted to defy him and demanded a nuclear freeze. According to Frank Bryan, whose most recent book is the widely acclaimed Real Democracy, “Vermont is just obstinate. We’ll do anything to be on the wrong side.” But is Vermont or the rest of America on the wrong side?

More recently David Hale, Frank Bryan and several hundred other Vermonters have joined the Second Vermont Republic—a peaceful, democratic, grassroots solidarity movement opposed to the tyranny of the U.S. Government, Corporate America, and globalization and committed to the return of Vermont to its rightful status as an independent republic as it once was between 1777 and 1791.

Consistent with Vermont’s radical imperative, the Second Vermont Republic embraces libertarian populism, sustainability, direct democracy, and political independence. In so doing, it hopes to provide a kinder, gentler, more communitarian alternative to a nation obsessed with money, power, size, speed, greed, and fear of terrorism.

Thomas H. Naylor
December 1, 2004

Thomas Naylor is author of The Vermont Manifesto and one of the founders of the Second Vermont Republic. For information visit www.vermontrepublic.org.

We the undersigned participants of Radical Consultation II held in Middlebury, Vermont on November 5-7, 2004, are convinced that the American Empire, now imposing its military might on 153 countries around the world, is as fragile as empires historically tend to be, and that it might well implode upon itself in the near future. Before that happens, no matter what shape the United States may take, we believe there is an opportunity now to push through new political ideas and projects that would offer true popular participation and genuine democracy. The time to prepare for that is now.

In our deliberations we have considered many kinds of strategies for a new politics and eventually decided upon the inauguration of a campaign to monitor, study, promote, and develop agencies of separatism. By separatism we mean all the forms by which small political bodies distance themselves from larger ones, as in decentralization, dissolution, disunion, division, devolution, or secession, creating small and independent states that rule themselves. Of course we favor such states that operate with participatory democracy and justice, which is only attainable as a small scale, but the primary principle is that states should enact their own separation and self-government as they see fit.

It is important to realize that the separatist and self-determination movement is actually the most important and most widespread political force in the world today and has been for the last half-century, during which time the United Nations, for example, has grown from 51 nations in 1945 to 193 nations in 2004. The break-up of the Soviet Union and the former Yugoslavia are recent manifestations of the separatist trend, and there are separatist movements in more than two dozen countries at this time, including such well-known ones as in Catalonia, Scotland, Wales, Lapland, Sardinia, Sicily, Sudan, Congo, Kashmir, Chechnya, Kurdistan, Quebec, British Columbia, Mexico, and the Indian nations of North America.

There is no reason that we cannot begin to examine the process of secession in the United States. There are already at least 28 separatist organizations in this country—the most active seem to be in Alaska, Cascadia, Texas, Hawaii, Vermont, Puerto Rico, and the South—and there seems to be a spreading sentiment that, because the national government has shown itself to be clumsy, unresponsive, and unaccountable, in so many ways, power should be concentrated at lower levels. Whether these levels should be the states or coherent regions within the states or something smaller still is a matter best left to the people active in devolution, but the principle of secession must be established as valid and legitimate.

To this end, therefore, we the undersigned are pledged to create a movement that will place secession on the national agenda, encourage secessionist organizations, develop communication among existing and future secessionist groups, and create a body of scholarship to examine and promote the ideas and principles of secessionism.

“Whenever any form of government is destructive of these ends—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government…in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”—Declaration of Independence, 1776

November 7, 2004 Middlebury, Vermont