The Spirit of Ethan Allen

Ethan Allen, hero of the Green Mountain Boys, prisoner of the British at Montréal

You gotta love chutzpah.

This guy here, this is Ethan Allen, one of the founders of Vermont, the man who captured Fort Ticonderoga from the British during the Revolutionary War, and the very same guy who then attempted to invade Montréal. This last one didn’t work out so well, as his ragtag army of fewer than 100 men (a mix of Americans and Canadiens) tried to attack the small fort to the east of colonial-era Montréal, at the Battle of Longue-Pointe. He gets his ass handed to him by a superior force and is taken prisoner and later exchanged.

Fast forward a few years to the era of the Vermont Republic, and Ethan Allen is getting the shaft by the Continental Congress, not to mention getting pushed around by New York. So what does he do? He begins discussions with the Governor of Québec about some form of alliance, either a merger or Québec recognition of Vermont sovereignty.

Given the outcome of the mid-term elections, I think it might be wise to give Bernie Sanders a call…

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