The Rainstorm at Windsor

The Vermont Constitution of 1777 was adopted because a rainstorm made the roads impassable. The convention at Windsor was finishing its work when news arrived that Burgoyne was threatening Ticonderoga. Delegates were ready to leave. A storm came up. They stayed, finished the document, and signed it.

What they produced was radical for 1777: the first American constitution to abolish adult slavery, universal male suffrage with no property qualification, a unicameral legislature with a Council of Censors. These were not accidents. They came from a political culture that had spent a decade fighting New York's attempt to impose an elite land-grant system on frontier settlers who had been told their titles were invalid.

The men who wrote that constitution had attended county conventions in Brattleboro and Westminster. They had buried William French. When they finally had the chance to write a constitution, they wrote what they believed — and what they believed turned out to be more democratic than most of their contemporaries were ready for.