Vermont Secessionism

Vermont. From “vert” and “mont“, literally “green” and “mount”. The Green Mountain State, as it is otherwise known.

Vermont occupies an interesting symbolic place in American history. There are fierce strains of “real” republicanism and independence in the state’s past, and this has carried up to more recent times. Bernard “Bernie” Sanders, the former mayor of Burlington, who once sat in the House, is one of only two independents in the U.S. Senate. He is the only self-described socialist to ever be elected as a U.S. senator.

This resistance to the over-arching interests of contemporary American imperialism has been taken to new heights recently. Witness an editorial in The Washington Post writen by a couple of secessionism aficionados (one a political scientist at the University of Vermont) last week. I realize the fact it was written on the 1st and essentially “constructs” a history of Vermont secessionism makes it seem fishy, but this is likely no April Fool’s joke. The movement has a following, and the group the two helped found has a website and publishes a journal, Vermont Commons. They distinguish themselves from the more right-leaning (and, sadly, more well-known) Second Vermont Republic. A discussion of the subtle political complexities can be found here.

This is the kind of energetic and spirited engagement with government I like to see. In Vermont the lessons are clear…Dairy farmers, libertarians, old hippies, and others too eccentric to classify all help make the state unique and special. I have a personal sense of how this plays out as I was intimately familiar with the backroads of upstate Vermont, living for a time only minutes across the border in the Eastern Townships. I remember trips to Montgomery Center, with it’s old general store…And walking out behind the town school to the falls. Then there was the Long Trail and Jay Peak. Those mountains were a part of my boyhood. I also vividly recall Burlington in the summer, even earlier in life, the late 70s, and the old chip wagon perched on the edge of the park, overlooking beautiful Lake Champlain. There was also ice cream, served by these two guys with beards…Oh, and can’t forget the beach and Mallett’s Bay…

Vermont always felt different. Later, when I lived further away and cross-border trips were more infrequent, a deep moral struggle ensued as to whether to jet down to Plattsburg or make the (slighly longer) haul to Burlington. Going the Vermont way was always preferable (though, sometimes, you’re in a New York state of mind…) — it just had a certain “vibe”. That Vermont vibe has been good for me at times…Having missed all the paper exam dates in the fall of, like, 1994, I drove down to Burlington to write my GREs on one of the early computer versions of the test. I seem to remember being annoyed at how incompatible the format was to the written test I had prepared for, but in the end I didn’t care…Some bookstore browsing, a great meal at the Windjammer (or was it Tijuana Flats?) and all was forgotten. So much the better. It was the last standardized test I ever took…

So anyway, in spite of rambling diversions, I think the whole Vermont political scene is just great. And if they ever get their act together, I’ll be the first in line to petition to become a Green Mountain boy…I even have an idea for a tie-dye flag…

Kidding aside, you gotta hand it to some Americans — the political spirit in the country is always evolving. Secession was a political concept used to re-align federal arrangements in the past, and many of these historical events precede (and even helped precipitate…) the Civil War. In fact, the Nullification Crisis in South Carolina in the 1830s, while linked to the issue of slavery, had a host of other intriguing political connotations and consequences. Talking about the brass tacks of levels and forms of government is healthy every once in a while…Particularly when the mainstream discourse of party politics is so monolithic and disheartening…

So I say go Vermont. The world needs more U.S. states like you.

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