Before Congress was apprised of this action, resolutions were proposed in that body that if, within one month after notification, Vermont complied with the resolutions of August, she should at once be admitted into the Union, but that non-compliance with them would be considered a manifest indication of her hostility to the United States, whose forces should then be employed against her inhabitants, and her territory be divided by the line of the Green Mountains between New Hampshire and New York. But the resolutions were not adopted, and the Vermont delegates presently arriving at Philadelphia officially informed Congress of the action of the legislature.
The matter was referred to a committee of five, which reported on the 17th of April. Its sense was that, as Vermont had fully complied with the requirements of Congress, her recognition and admission had become "necessary to be performed;" and it submitted a resolution recognizing and acknowledging Vermont as a free, sovereign, and independent State, and authorizing the appointment of a committee to treat with the Vermont delegates upon the terms of admission.
Notwithstanding all this, Congress again resorted to the policy of delay by which it had so long evaded a settlement of this controversy, and motions to consider the report were successively made and rejected.
The Vermont delegates were indignant at such treatment, and after addressing a letter to the president of Congress stating the confident hope of recognition which had induced Vermont to relinquish her unions, expressing their disappointment at the delay of Congress, and setting forth the critical situation in which Vermont was now placed, left unaided to oppose invasions of the enemy from Canada, they shook the dust of Philadelphia from their feet, "expecting to be officially acquainted when their attendance would be necessary."
There was a universal feeling in Vermont that the legislature had been duped by Congress into weakening the State. The people lost faith in the promises and resolutions of Congress, and there were frequent expressions of bitter feeling against it. A member of the legislature, gossiping with neighbors at the mill while their grists were grinding, declared that Congress had no business to interfere with the unions of Vermont; and when a noted adherent of New York expressed a different opinion, he cursed Congress roundly. "Curse Congress! Haven't we waited long enough on them? A pox on them! I wish they would come to the mill now. I would put them between the millstones or under the water-wheel! They have sold us like an old horse! They have no business with our affairs. We know no such body of men!" Another prominent worthy, who was in the secret of the Haldimand correspondence, said, "We're fixin' up a pill that'll make the Yorkers hum." Another declared in a public house that, "as long as the King and Parliament of Great Britain approved of and would maintain the State of Vermont, he was determined to drive it, and so were its leaders."[90]
There was a settled determination to maintain the independence of the State and to ask no favors of the vacillating Congress, though the legislature, that nothing might be wanting on their part, at its next session appointed agents empowered to arrange terms of admission to the Union.
FOOTNOTES:
[87] Clinton afterwards denied giving any authority to this demand on the State of Vermont.
[88] H. Hall, Z. Steele's Indian Captive.
[89] New Hampshire in the East Union.