"If
we allow the government to pay our debts," they said, "we become
slaves to the government. If we give up control of our own money
matters the government will have too much power over us. We put
too much power in the hands of a few." Then they talked of tyranny.
You see many of the people of the United States rightly or wrongly
had come to look upon any government as certain to be tyrannous.
However, Hamilton got his way in the end. The money matters of the
nation were settled satisfactorily, and the separate states bound
more securely together.
And now another state joined the union, that of Vermont. Vermont,
as you can see if you look on the map, lies between New Hampshire
and New York, and there had been bitter disputes between the two
over the land which both claimed. In 1765, however, King George III
had decided that the land belonged to New York, and must be under
the rule of that colony. The people, however, rebelled. And when
in 1777 the Governor of New York threatened to drive them all into
the Green Mountains if they did not yield peaceably they raised
an army of volunteers to whom they gave the name of Green Mountain
Boys. They took this name from the word Vermont which meant Green
Mountain.
The Green Mountain Boys fought the New York Governor and declared
Vermont a separate colony. Now these old quarrels were forgotten.
Pages:
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
516