HISTORY OF VERMONT. 195 



sjclves as holden either in the sight of God or 

 man, to submit to the execution of a plan, which 

 they had reason to believe was commenced by- 

 neighboring states : That the liberties and privi- 

 leges of the state of Vermont, by said resolu- 

 tiiDns, are to be suspended upon the arbitrament 

 and final determination of Congress, when in 

 their opinion they were things too sacred ever 

 to be arbitrated upon at a^ll ; and what they were 

 bound to defend, at every risk : That the Con- 

 gress of the United States had no right to inter- 

 meddle in the internal police, and government 

 of Vermont : That the state existed indepen- 

 dent of any of the thirteen United States, and 

 was not accountable to them, or to their repre- 

 sentatives, for liberty, the gift of the beneficent 

 creator : That the state of Vermont was not 

 represented in Congress, and could not submit 

 to resolutions passed without their consent, or 

 even knowledge, and which put every thing that 

 Was valuable to them, at stake : That there ap- 

 peared a manifest inequality, not to say prede- 

 termination, that Congress should request of 

 their constituents power to judge and determine 

 in the cause, and never ask the consent of thou- 

 sands, whose all was at stake : They also de- 

 clared that they were, and ever had been ready 

 to bear their proportion of the burden and ex- 

 pense of the war with Great Britain, from its 

 first commencement, whenever they were ad- 

 mitted into the union with the other states : But 

 they were not so lost to all sense, and honor, 

 that after four years war with Britain, in which 

 they had expended so much blood and treasure^ 

 that they should now give up every tiling worth 



VOL, II. Z 



