Drafting of the 1777 Constitution of the Vermont Republic

The 1777 Constitution of the Vermont Republic was drafted at Windsor in the Old Constitution House. Its Declaration of Rights of the Inhabitants of the State of Vermont anticipated the United States Bill of Rights by a dozen years, and the document was among the most far-reaching of its time in guaranteeing personal freedoms and individual rights. The constitution also established a Council of Censors, based on a similar element of the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776, so that the freedom of the Commonwealth might be preserved inviolate. Vermont's Constitution remains largely unchanged since 1777 and is the only active constitutional document to have been drafted and ratified outside of the United States.