Ruminations: The Bradleys of Westminster
from $40,000 to $900, saving him thousands of dollars.15 That may have been the
reason he left, but whatever it was it must
have been grievous. Stephen Rowe Bradley, formerly of Westminster, became a resident of Walpole, New Hampshire. Whatever perceived wrong drove him across the
river, the fact of his emigration, in light of
his iconic status as a patriot and public servant, must be seen as an abandonment of
all he had worked for in his life.
Four expulsions, four redirections, constitute monuments in the lives of these two
Vermonters. But those transitions are not
why they are remembered.
Vermont’s Appeal to the Candid
and Impartial World
Stephen Rowe Bradley was Vermont’s
lawyer. His argument for Vermont independence, approved by the governor and
council in December of 1779, was his brief.
It is the first legal analysis of the state’s
claims for its existence.16 It was printed by
the firm of Hudson & Goodwin of Hartford,
Connecticut, and widely distributed.
The Appeal consists of several parts,
each dedicated to persuading a different
audience, beginning with the “world,” then
separately addressing the General Congress of the United States, and the inhabitants of the United States. Bradley wrote for
a committee of three agents appointed by
the Council of Safety to seek recognition of
the infant state, but the voice is Bradley’s.
Vermonters “view themselves intitled with
the rest of the world, to that liberty which
heaven bequeathed to Adam, and equally
to all of his posterity.”
We do not expect to stand upon any
derived power from an arbitrary king;
we cannot conceive human nature fallen so low, as to be dependent on a
crowned head for liberty to exist; we
expect to stand justified to the world,
upon that great principle of reason,
10
that we were created with equal privileges in the scale of human beings,
among which is that essential right
of making our own laws, and chusing
our own form of government; and that
we, nor our fathers, have never given
up that right to any kingdom, colony,
province, or state, but retain it