Vermont in the American Civil War Vermont in the American Civil War During the American Civil War, the State of Vermont continued the military tradition started by the Green Mountain Boys of American Revolutionary War fame, contributing a significant portion of its eligible men to the war effort. The second article in Vermont's constitution, originally written in 1777, abolished slavery, making it the first state to do so. Although its climate was not conducive to the slave trade, Vermonters were early participants in the abolitionist movement. In the 1860 presidential election, Vermont gave Republican Abraham Lincoln a lopsided victory, 33,808 votes compared to 8,649 for Stephen
Origins of the American Civil War of anything that was legal property in any state. State sovereignty, in other words, gave the laws of the slaveholding states "extra-jurisdictional" effect. "States' rights" was an ideology formulated and applied as a means of advancing slave state interests through federal authority. As historian Thomas L Krannawitter points out, "[T]he Southern demand for federal slave protection represented a demand for an unprecedented expansion of federal power." By 1860, these four doctrines comprised the major ideologies presented to the American public on the matters of slavery, the territories and the US Constitution. Antislavery movements in the North gained momentum in the