Vermont Constitution Becomes First in the Americas to Abolish Slavery

Vermont's 1777 constitution, adopted July 8, declared: 'no male person, born in this country, or brought from over sea, ought to be holden by law, to serve any person, as a servant, slave or apprentice, after he arrives to the age of twenty-one years.' This was the first explicit constitutional prohibition of slavery in the Americas. Vermont's small Black population and near-absence of an established slaveholding class made the provision politically feasible where others could not.