Ruminations: the Laws of 1817
| Publication year | 2005 |
| Citation | Vol. 2005 No. 12 |
December 2005 - #10. RUMINATIONS: THE LAWS OF 1817
With centennials, bicentennials, or the upcoming quadrennial celebration of the first recorded view of Vermont by caucasoid eyes, history likes to deal with roundish numbers, but occasionally we owe it to ourselves to look at things because they are there, rather than because they trigger an anniversary.(fn1) So it is that the Laws of 1817 fell into my hands, a gift from a friend who saw it in an antique store, in a clear plastic sleeve, a gray-colored paperback of 144 yellowed pages, formerly the property of the Vergennes "Town Clerk," as a steady hand has written on the front and back of the book.(fn2)
What wondrous things can be found in random reading of old books. E.J. Phelps, said to be the greatest Vermont lawyer of the second half of the nineteenth century, described himself as a conservative, defining that term to mean one who loves what is old because it is old, for its own sake.(fn3) In that mode, when you see the Laws of 1817, you cannot just sniff and continue browsing. You have to pick it up and later, while others doze in their chairs after dinner, read it cover to cover, with delight.
In the fall of 1817, Jonas Galusha, of Shaftsbury, was Governor. James Monroe was President, in the first year of his first term. The Vermont Speaker of the House was William Griswold, of Danville. Vermont had thirteen counties (lacking Lamoille, chartered in 1835), and about 230,000 people, a bit more than a third of its present population.(fn4) The land was cleared, the threat of war had passed, and Vermonters were busy.
Later, people would call this the first year of the era of good feeling, a time when political factionalism was nearly nonexistent in Washington and throughout the nation.(fn5) It was a kind of caesura, a cultural pause between the very strong and hard feelings caused by the recent war and the embargo that preceded it and the coming struggles over slavery and the union.
House members, each representing an organized town, met in Montpelier, at the State House, beginning on the second Thursday in October until adjournment on November 6, and enacted 144 separate acts in that time.(fn6) By modern standards, the production of new laws and amendments to existing laws was prodigious. Much of the new law was private, domestic, or of minor statewide importance. This was a time when the legislature had sole authority to charter new corporations and to perform a variety of administrative functions.
Today, many of these acts seem curiously non-legislative in nature, such as ordering new trials after judgment, suspending the debts of individuals, taxing towns for their own roads and bridges. It was still early to say the state had developed. In particular, Essex, Caledonia, and Orleans counties were just opening up to settlement. Government was small and non-intrusive, except for taxes.
Taxes
The budget for the State of Vermont in 1817 totaled $39,000, which included $14,000 for the salaries and expenses of state officers, the courts, and the legislature, and $25,000 for claims against the state, including the cost of maintaining the State House and Windsor Prison, the only two state buildings.(fn7)
These funds were raised by a statewide property tax of one cent and five mills on a dollar of the grand list of the towns of the state, due the following June.(fn8) For immediate funds, leave was given to the state treasurer to issue $6,000 in Treasury Notes, ordering that the notes be received in payment on all demands and taxes owed the state.(fn9)
That session the legislature authorized Washington County to use part of the State House Common for a county courthouse.(fn10) Then it levied a tax of one cent and five mills on the lists of Washington County landowners to pay for its construction.(fn11)
Although towns had the authority to enact local taxes, many still petitioned the legislature to levy taxes on their lands for general purposes. The State taxed each acre of Stamford three cents to make roads and build bridges, appointing superintendents for the work and a special tax collector to raise the...
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