Another Reputedly Early Vermont Secession Proponent Gets Some Distance Between Himself and the Secesher Wingnuts

Years ago Vermont writer Bill Mares wrote a book with University of Vermont professor Frank M. Bryan titled "OUT! The Vermont secession Book" that flatlanders (only) scooped up

while they were bagging up leaves to take home to prove that they'd visited Vermont during foliage or, as those same flatlanders often as not called it, "foilage" season.

Since the "small community" (their words, not mine) of Second Vermont Republic (SVR) secessionist droids appeared on the scene in 2003, Mares has kept his distance.  Bryan not so much.

Early on, Bryan served on the SVR advisory board for years despite it being well known that his fellow board members were members of white supremacist groups both here and abroad.  When Bryan finally quit the group he said that he only took so long because he didn't want to look like he was being forced out because of charges of racism against SVR. I wrote at length on Bryan's departure, no, getting his ass kicked out by that Magnolia Vermonter, Thomas Naylor, who said that Bryan wasn't a sufficiently doodah secessionist here.

You'd think a professor would have had more balls than to hang out with the Dixie singin' Thomas Naylor crowd long after it became well known that Naylor was routinely rubbing shoulders with some of the most despicable, racist Lost Cause characters that you couldn't possibly make up on your own.

Any who, Mares indirectly sinks the shaft into Vermont seceshers with a commentary that aired on VPR today.  You can listen to it here or read it below.

Mares: Secession Revisited
Vermont Public Radio
Wednesday, 11/28/12 5:55pm

By Bill Mares

"..(Host) With post-election petitions to secede flowing into the White House, writer, former state legislator and commentator Bill Mares reflects on real and fanciful moves to leave the Union."
"..(Mares) Since President Obama's re-election, numerous petitions to secede from the union have arrived at the White House. They're made up of approximately 600,000 signatures from all 50 states - or roughly 2 tenths of one percent of all Americans. The hotbed of this modern-day secession movement is Texas , whose governor Rick Perry referred to it publicly during his brief run for the presidency. The Texas secede web site insists that, "...it is practically feasible for Texas to withdraw from the union, and to do so would protect it's citizens' standard of living and re-secure their rights and liberties..."

"Secession is a topic I've thought about before. 25 years ago, UVM prof essor Frank Bryan and I wrote a book that speculated about how Vermont might secede from the union. We titled it, "OUT, The Vermont Secession Book" with the sub-title, "We won't make that mistake again." We invented a covenant supposedly signed by Ethan Allen and George Washington giving Vermont the right to secede whenever we became sufficiently angered by federal actions. We imagined a currency backed by pure maple syrup which was stored in the Granite quarries of Barrie . We proposed to sell products like fresh air, Bag-Balm, dried cow manure and hand-size plots of land (100 square inches) so that millions could own "a piece of Vermont." And so on . We me ant the book to be a satirical spoof. But these New Secessionists - like the "birther movement" to cast doubt on Obama's citizenship - are no joke."

"I grew up in Texas so I know from experience how some residents of the Lone Star State view the world . My elementary school textbook was titled "The true history of the war between the states, from a southerners' point of view." We were taught that in 1845, the United States joined Texas in a new Union. And a popular song of the era was "Save that confederate money boys, The South will rise again."

"But the urge to secede isn't limited to either the South or the Conservative Right. Before the Election six different friends sent me an open internet letter proposing that the Blue states should secede if Romney won - because, among other things, they claimed that:
62% of those in the Red states believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44% say that evolution is only a theory, 53% that Saddam was involved in 9/11 , and 38% that Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale.
Fortunately, in most of the country cooler heads have prevailed. At Mississippi State University campus newspaper student editors warned against this "internet sensation" this way:

"To those who signed petitions to secede from the union, think long and hard about what that signature implies. Abraham Lincoln once said, ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.'"

"Finally, the secessionist fire no longer burns in Rick Perry's belly. According to his press secretary, "the Governor believes in the greatness of our Union and nothing should be done to change it."

Move over Bernie Sanders, Bill McKibben and virtually every other Vermonter who hasn't boarded the Naylor crazy train. It looks like Mares just got himself a prime seat on the enormously long Naylor shitlist.

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University of Vermont Professor Frank Bryan Quits the Vermont Secession Movement

It probably had to happen. Breakups are never a pretty thing and this one has been going on in slow motion for years.

The basis for the relationship was never really all that strong. Sure, they
shared a liking for some of the same things and they had even shared professional interests. Maybe relationship is too strong a term; mutualistic might better describe what was going on.

Alright, this is all getting a little confusing so perhaps asking the question, "How did Frank M. Bryan, a quirky, respected professor at University of Vermont get hooked up with an anti-American poseur and would be founding father of an independent Vermont Republic, Thomas Naylor?" might clear things up. Or not.

For sure, only Frank will ever be the one to answer that question for himself, but what is clear is that he has "left the (Vermont secession) movement." This, according to Ohio secessionist Harold Thomas, from an email sent by Bryan three months ago to Thomas:

"I left the (Vermont secession) movement for the following reason:"

"I love America. I tear up when I hear America the beautiful sung correctly. I say the Pledge of Allegiance and mean it when I do."

"I could not stand by and watch the American flag burned. I honor our soldiers past and present and so on."

"I viewed secession as a divorce breaking up a marriage when both partners may still love one another. (It happens.) Plus I felt (and still do) that Vermont could survive and prosper as an independent Republic. With all that said I simply could not stand my own hypocrisy any longer."

"Actually I stayed on the advisory committee of the SVR (Second Vermont Republic) longer than I should have because (I) was told that 'some people' were calling us racist. I was so put off by that kind of McCarthyist tactic that I didn't want to seem to verify it by resigning at that point."

'Course, here Bryan has again made the same empty charge about being called a racist that Naylor, Rob Williams, and the rest of the Vermont secesher wingnuts have, that early on they were all called racists. The charge was then that the Second Vermont Republic advisory board had been packed with racists from the League of the South. Thomas Naylor has made no secret of his longtime alliance with openly racist groups like the LoS. Williams, when faced with the fact that some of his LoS type pals could be racist responded:

"Is he a racist? I don’t know. And frankly, it is none of my damn business, at a personal level."

You'd think that Bryan, a professor of political science, could at least get the basic facts right.

The split up between Bryan and Naylor's SVR is more than two years old. Naylor drummed Bryan out of his fantasy, secessionist republic in this statement found in a March 2009 edition of UVM's campus publication, The Vermont Cynic:

"Bryan agrees that Vermont is not ready to secede at this point in time and Naylor has said that 'Frank Bryan is not a secessionist' because of this belief."

"'If you said Vermont could secede tomorrow, I would say to you, we're not ready to secede tomorrow. I'm glad I'm not going to see Vermont secede from the union because I'd be desperately lonely. I don't think I even want my kids to [see it happen],' Bryan said.

"(Rob) Williams is on Naylor's side."

Source

On that point we can all agree that Bryan is correct. The deceptive and dishonorable campaign conducted by Naylor, Williams and their lackeys has been so offensive - particularly the undisguised hatred for the vast majority of Vermonters and their institutions - that the very idea of SVR and VTCommons ever succeeding in seceding has become a statewide joke that no one, aside from the "small community" of secesher "Internet cowboys" wants to "see it happen." Between Naylor's increasingly shrill, tweedy tirades against Israel & Vermonters, while at the same time lauding Holocaust denying Ahmadinejad, and Williams' increasingly embarrassing attempts to gain relevance by inviting the uninterested into meeting with him to explain themselves to him, prior to which he launched an Islamophobic, racist attack on President Obama, it becomes progressively clear how unhinged the leadership of the secesher movement (a figure of speech only) has become.

Here's what Naylor has said about the Iranian leader whose country, under his leadership, "remain(s) the most active state sponsor of terrorism": [1] [2]

"Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is one of the few leaders in the world who possesses the courage to confront the United States and Israel."

Source

The Bryan/Naylor squabble spilled into the public eye in this Seven Days story from late last summer, as well as in a report about it here:

Frank Bryan, a UVM political science professor who spent years arguing for Vermont’s secession, says running candidates was always a goal of the movement. But he argues its current approach is wrong.

“One of the problems with all the secessionists is they’re impatient,” says Bryan, who has turned his back on secession. “They want to go to the top immediately with candidates who really don’t have a lot of experience in governing.”

What candidates like Dennis Steele should do, Bryan argues, is run for school board and city council before seeking statewide office, to establish a record, gain experience and earn the trust of voters.

Naylor calls that argument “totally absurd."

(Connecticut native) “Dennis Steele has done more for the Vermont independence movement in the last six months than anyone has done in the last seven years,” Naylor says. “The only way you could have that platform is by running for governor.”

Naylor knows his candidates face an uphill battle. Even though one UVM poll suggested 13 percent of Vermonters favor secession (VS Editor's Note: a push poll bought and paid for by Naylor - see polling section in right column of this blog), he doesn’t expect that to translate directly into votes. Naylor would be happy if Steele got 10 percent, he says, itself a lofty goal.

Naylor knows the word “secession” carries some very negative connotations. “Secession is anathema. Secession is failure. Secession is civil war. Secession is racism,” he admits with obvious frustration. “Those are hard things to overcome.”

It's now known that Steele failed to get anywhere near the 10% that Naylor said he'd be "happy" to get. Rather, Steele got a fringer's usual less than one percent (0.79%).

Carol Moore, an anti-Semitic blogger and one of Rob Williams' contributors at Vermont Commons, is a coatracking specialist at Wikipedia who has been trying to hide the fact that Frank Bryan has left the SVR advisory board for years, as well as conceal the fact that there's a dearth of true believers in the Vermont secesher movement. No less a true believer than Vermont Commons' publisher emeritus and Naylor pal, Ian Baldwin, has labeled the movement "our small community of secessionists." [1] [2]

The Vermont secession movement has been based on historic misrepresentations, deliberate deceptions and has relied on the half-baked ideals of a coterie of bigots, anti-Semites, homophobes, racists and/or regional supremacists.

With that sort of a foundation for the relationship, a breakup just had to happen.

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Second Vermont Republic Advisory Board Member Thomas J. DiLorenzo Gave A Lecture to Another neo-Confederate Group, That Wasn't the League of the South

Ten days ago, Loyola University Maryland economics professor and a longtime advisory board member to the secessionist group, Second Vermont Republic, Thomas J. DiLorenzo was a guest lecturer on February 5, 2011 for the neo-Confederate organization called the Sons of Confederate Veterans, at their Stephen D. Lee Institute gathering.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans has a checkered history and many members are also present or former members of hate groups such as the League of the South, the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens (formerly known as the White Citizens Council), as well as former Klansmen, a Holocaust denial journal editor and neo-Nazis who hold leadership roles in the SCV. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

"From the Mississippi Division of the SCV, comes this new gem: The group wants the state to issue a special license plate, keyed like the Montgomery march to the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, to honor Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest — a millionaire Memphis slave trader before the war, an apparent war criminal who presided over the massacre of surrendering black prisoners at Fort Pillow, Tenn., during it, and the first national leader of the Ku Klux Klan afterward..."
Source: Southern Poverty Law Center

DiLorenzo, in addition to lecturing the Lost Cause crowd at SCV, serves as a scholar shill for the neo-Confederate movement at the Abbeville Institute [6] as does the baas of the Second Vermont Republic, Thomas Naylor. [7]

As UVM professor Frank Bryan (who left the SVR advisory board last year) told the SPLC Intelligence Report in 2008,

"You've got to watch whose conference you go to. There's no doubt about it."

DiLorenzo may not have gotten that message - yet.

(h/t: Ed Sebesta, Anti-Neo-Confederate)


An excellent overview of the neo-Confederate movement can be found here.

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Today In Vermont History - January 15, 1777

Today being the day that those who would eventually come to call themselves Vermonters declared themselves to be an "independent state," I thought these two brief essays might be in order.

You see, there never really was a First Vermont Republic.

The claim that Vermont operated as a republic is at best flimsy and questionable. Every step taken by those early Vermonters was to the end of membership in the United States. They faced initial obstacles to Vermont's eventual statehood arising from conflicting claims by two adjacent states.

During the Revolutionary War the Vermont militia, known as the Green Mountain Boys, was paid by the Continental Congress via the State of New York.

Many of the settlers, like Thomas Rowley, had come to Vermont from Connecticut and as a symbolic representation of that origin and their independence from both New Hampshire and New York, they first chose the name New Connecticut. The first essay below covers those early days, while the second covers the myths that Thomas Naylor's Second Vermont Republic and Rob Williams' "Vermont Commons" have sought to turn into truths.

American Revolution
Jan 15, 1777:
Vermont New Connecticut Declares Independence

Having recognized the need for their territory to assert its independence from both Britain and New York and remove themselves from the war they were waging against each other, a convention of future Vermonters assembles in Westminster and declares independence from the crown of Great Britain and the colony of New York on this day in 1777. The convention's delegates included Vermont's future governor, Thomas Chittenden, and Ira Allen, who would become known as the "father" of the University of Vermont.

Delegates first named the independent state New Connecticut and, in June 1777, finally settled on the name Vermont, an imperfect translation of the French for green mountain. One month later, on July 2, 1777, a convention of 72 delegates met in Windsor, Vermont, to adopt the state's new—and revolutionary—constitution; it was formally adopted on July 8, 1777. Vermont's constitution was not only the first written national constitution drafted in North America, but also the first to prohibit slavery and to give all adult males, not just property owners, the right to vote. Thomas Chittenden became Vermont's first governor in 1778.

Throughout the 1780s, Congress refused to acknowledge that Vermont was a separate state independent of New York. In response, frustrated Vermonters went so far as to inquire if the British would readmit their territory to the empire as part of Canada. Vermont remained an independent nation even two years after George Washington became president of the United States of America under the new U.S. Constitution. However, as the politics of slavery threatened to divide the U.S., Vermont was finally admitted as the new nation's 14th state in 1791, serving as a free counterbalance to slaveholding Kentucky, which joined the Union in 1792.

And from Vermont's longtime state archivist:

Voice from the Vault
By Gregory Sanford, State Archivist
Myths and Documents.

One of the enduring lines from George Orwell's 1984 is: "He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future." I often think of this line when I encounter folks attempting to achieve a future outcome by manipulating Vermont’s past. When done often enough we come to accept such manipulations as historic realities and incorporate them into our own rhetoric.

At the Archives, for example, we regularly receive requests for copies of the "escape clause" in the Vermont Constitution. This purported clause allows Vermont to withdraw from the United States. A variation, which we call the Brigadoon theory, is that this escape clause opens up every hundred years, presumably starting in 1791. After all, would Vermonters, after 14 years of independence (1777-1791), simply embrace statehood without leaving a way out? The requests come from across the political spectrum: those who do not like a national administration; oppose national foreign or economic policies; loath the federal income tax; or fear gun control or other potential restraints on individual freedom.

The truth, drawn from documents, is less satisfying; there is no, nor has there ever been, such an escape clause.

These thoughts emerged while reading news stories on current efforts to withdraw Vermont from the union. I have before me a news release by two Vermont supporters of secession. Part of their argument is based on historical facts of dubious reputation. Let me illustrate by juxtaposing italicized quotes from the press release with quotes from historical documents.

"Vermont did not join the Union to become part of an empire."
At the January 1791 convention on whether Vermont should ratify the U.S. Constitution and join the union Nathaniel Chipman argued, "But received into the bosom of the union, we at once become brethren and fellow-citizens with more than three millions of people; instead of being confined to the narrow limits of Vermont, we become members of an extensive empire…" Chipman goes on to enumerate the advantages of joining this empire, the United States. His arguments carried the day and the convention voted for ratification 105 to 4.

"Vermont more or less sat out the War of 1812, and its governor ordered troops fighting the British to come home."
Yes, Governor Martin Chittenden did order Vermont troops home from Plattsburgh, but they refused to return, explaining "that when we are ordered into the service of the United States, it becomes our duty, when required, to march to the defence of any section of the Union. We are not of that class who believe that our duties as citizens or soldiers are circumscribed within the narrow limits of the Town or State in which we reside, but that we are under a paramount obligation to our common country, to the great confederation of States."

"Vermont fought the Civil War primarily to end slavery."
And yet in 1861 when Governor Erastus Fairbanks convened the special war session of the Vermont legislature he warned not about slavery but that, "The Federal capital is menaced by an imposing and well armed military force, and the Government itself, and the national archives, are in imminent peril." Jeffrey Marshall, the head of Special Collections at UVM, has read thousands of Civil War letters from hundreds of Vermonters. He reports that only a "handful" of the Vermont soldiers cited slavery as the reason they were fighting; they instead directed their ire at the secessionists, who they characterized as treasonous.

"After the Great Flood of 1927, the worst natural disaster in the state’s history, President Calvin Coolidge (a Vermonter) offered help. Vermont’s governor replied, ‘Vermont will take care of its own’."
Whatever Governor Weeks might have actually said, the reality is that Vermont’s congressional delegation successfully lobbied for $2.6 million in federal flood relief. In addition Governor Weeks accepted a check for $600,000 from the Red Cross to help with flood recovery.

And so on. My point is neither to argue with our current secessionists nor denigrate the beliefs of the authors of the press release. Heck, most of us have, at one time or other, probably cited some of the historical "facts" the authors used. I am simply arguing the importance of having accessible public records to evaluate the rhetoric of public figures.

Locating, understanding and interpreting public records will never be as much fun as mouthing our cherished myths. Public records are, however, evidence of the actions we actually took as a State. They too can be pulled out of context or selectively (mis)used to prove a belief. And yet, I would argue, the stories they hold are as dramatic, and instructive, as those found in Vermont mythology.

That is why I think it so important that we pay more attention to teaching Vermont history and civics in our schools. It is why using Vermont’s historical records is so important to learning to become engaged citizens. To learn how to identify and interpret those records creates an intellectual skill that is essential to navigating through our "information age." If we do not learn how to effectively evaluate information in all its myriad forms we will never be able to perform our responsibilities as citizens. To paraphrase Mr. Orwell, "Whoever understands the past, understands the present; whoever understands the present can plan for the future."

Gregory Sanford, Vermont State Archivist for the Office of the Vermont Secretary of State

The disingenuous opinion piece that Sanford so eloquently refuted was authored by former SVR board member, Frank Bryan and SVR dead-ender, Ian Baldwin.

You can see the text of Vermont's first constitution here at the Secretary of State's website. (Spoiler Alert: The word "republic" appears nowhere in it.)

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