 Welcome everyone. Welcome to the ongoing general elections coverage by Town Meeting Television. This is one of a series of forums we're bringing to you in advance of the general election in November. Town Meeting TV is hosting forums with all candidates and covering all of the ballot items you will see on your November ballot. We'd like to introduce you to community decision makers and connect you with issues that shape your local community. If you're watching this live, we welcome your questions. You can call in at 802-862-3966. You can watch Town Meeting TV on Comcast Channel 1087, Burlington Telecom Channel 17, and 217, as well as online at youtube.com slash townmeetingtv. And with that, I'd love to introduce our panelists. Mark, why don't we have you go first if you can introduce yourselves and outline your general view of Proposal 2. And how you are personally or politically affected by this issue. Sure. Happy to do it. And thanks for for having me. It's good to see you, Zariah. It's good to see you again as well, Peter. And I am the executive director of the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance. Some of the work that we've been doing, well all of the work that we've been doing has been, as you know, surrounding systemic racism, addressing root causes, impacts, solutions. And leading up to the time that PR2 was introduced, most people know that in addition to the racial disparities in the criminal and juvenile justice system advisory panel, that we also were successful at. It was a second pass that Governor Vee told the first one, but we did get the executive director of racial equity passed. So that was kind of leading up to we did have our eyes on the Constitution. We were aware that in Article 1 that there's language in Article 1 that does provide for exceptions that permit slavery. And because the process only happens every four years, we were required to wait until 2019 to introduce it. Although in 2018, we did go in and provide a, we introduced through Representative Tina a House resolution that urged the 2019 Senate to initiate it. Because as you probably know, it can only initiate in the Senate every four years. So definitely, you know, we're thinking about, okay, what, you know, what more of a cornerstone can we really deal with than the institution of slavery in a conversation about systemic racism? So very much focused on it. And also always have been transparently intentional about coming back to this conversation later. So at some point or another, we can have start having conversations about amending or replacing the 13th Amendment of the United States Constitution, which also provides for an exception clause to slavery. So yeah, excited to be here. Thanks for, thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to a lively discussion. Great. And Peter, we'll go to you next. And when you're done, I will also be reading the ballot language, the proposal to language, so folks have that exactly. But if you can go ahead and introduce yourself and your role. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here tonight and to join my good friend, Mark Hughes on this. We share many, many things in common. We have some slight differences about how you read Article One and what the impact of Prop Two would be, but and we'll probably have a chance to ventilate those differences and shared views this evening. I'm a professor of law at Vermont Law School with a specialty in constitutional law and Vermont constitutional history. Those are areas that I have been fields of interest ever since I started teaching at Vermont Law School. This issue is of particular personal interest to me and professional interest because it deals with one of the most important provisions in the Vermont Constitution, Article One, which generally has been understood to abolish slavery in the state and to stand for the first constitutional provision ever to have abolished slavery. We'll get back to later in the evening how it purports to do so. What's the basis in Article One for claiming that it abolished slavery? But that is my interest. It's a very, what's involved is, if I could anticipate just a little, a very fundamental proposition that is important to me and it's the very first words of Article One begin that all are born equally free and independent and they have certain inalienable rights, the rights to pursue liberty and own and possess property and to pursue and obtain happiness, something that we're all still working on, but in any way, that idea that all persons, without exception, no matter what age, are born equally free and independent is an extremely important proposition and that's where my personal and professional interest lies. Great. Thank you so much for joining us and just so folks have the full ballot language, Article One starts out at that all persons are born equally free and independent and have certain natural inherent and inalienable rights amongst which are enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing and protecting property and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety. It goes on that therefore, and then this is the proposal to cross out, no person born in this country or brought from overseas ought to be holden by law to serve any persons as a servant, slave or apprentice after arriving to the age of 21 years unless bound by the person's own consent after arriving to such age or bound by law for the payment of debts, damages, fines, costs or the like. So that's crossed out to read therefore slavery and indentured servitude in any form are prohibited. So that's the exact language that we're talking about and if you could and Mark I think you started to get into this but tell us a little bit more about your understanding of the history of this particular proposal, why this is the exact language that is in front of us and the process that brought us here. Definitely and I think it's like super important for everybody to understand just how complex I think Peter would definitely agree or I should take I should say detailed the process is to amend the constitution in the state of Vermont probably unparalleled in you know to compare to most other states four-year process starts again in 2023 and can only be initiated in the Senate and it requires a two-thirds vote out of the Senate there there's a after that two-thirds vote in the first biennium goes to the House there must be a public hearing and then there needs to be a majority vote in the House and then that happens again the next year I think absent the two-thirds it cannot be amended throughout the entire process where we started was we had certain ideas about what the language should look like and we were kind of vacillating because we weren't really sure we weren't like professors of the Constitution but so we were trying to you know get it figured out but what we were sure about was is that we wanted to make sure that the Constitution was amended to reflect to make it very clear that slavery was prohibited you know I just you know just to piggy back on what Peter was just saying a minute ago he said that all persons are born equally free and independent and have certain and natural inherent and the eligible rights and it goes on but then it goes on to say you know after no person born or brought from overseas ought to be holding by law to serve any person or as a servant slave or apprentice after arriving at the age of 21 years unless bound by a person's own consent after arriving to such age or bound by law for the payment of debts finds costs or the like so you'll hear tonight I'm sure from Peter about you know there'll be a lot of conversations about what the original framers of this document intended I don't know if there's anybody alive who can really authoritatively speak about that but we'll hear it and I think that we'll probably you know dance around you know with the with the language you know concerning the the portion concerning the rights as they're expressed but at the end of the day no matter how many times we dance around this tonight we're still going to be sitting in front of a constitution that has three exception clauses that provide provisions for the to permit slavery no matter how we slice it and dice it at the end of the day that's where we're going to that's where we're going to end up that's what we saw then that's what we've seen throughout the entire process that's what we see tonight that's what our folks who have received your your ballots that's what that's what you see and I think that's why the voters are they're they're gonna we got some pretty smart voters out there they're gonna look at it say this is unacceptable and they're they're gonna take it in our direction we're gonna win it Peter any follow-up questions on the process and how we came to this language specifically for proposal two well let me echo what Martin said first of all the process is a lengthy one intentionally lengthy to make sure that we don't make amendments in an arbitrary on again off again way and I also want to recognize that mark played an instrumental role in initiating the process and following through with the process in the Vermont legislature I got involved long after he was initially involved when I was contacted by Senator Jeanette White of the Senate Government Operations Committee and she said Peter would you come up and help us understand this there's a we've we've the senators have introduced a proposal to amend article one and the basis of that is the view that that article one only partially prohibits slavery okay is that true or is that not true and she said they also want to get rid of the word slavery in the Vermont Constitution just the word and term the recognition of the institution somehow is offensive what options do we have if that's the way we want to decide to go so that's how I initially got involved and I went up and I testified well it depends on what you mean by abolish slavery or prohibit slavery and I explained and what do you mean by partially prohibit and I say if the argument is that article one allows slaves minor slaves non-adult slaves to be freely bought and sold in Vermont that's not true I said on the other hand they're very limited bedrock rules for what abolition means and they are very limited there are all sorts of problems and complications that this amendment excuse me this article does not currently deal with and I also said it's quite easy to see how the language of the amendment could be unclear and confusing I happen to be a legal historian I spend a lot of time in this not everybody in the state is that and if this language continues to cause confusions and problems maybe we ought to do something about that so that's how I got involved initially great and a reminder that if folks would like to call in we are taking live questions at 802-862-3966 but now with another of our questions Peter I'll have you take this one first but Vermont is unique in having this language around in voluntary servitude for a decent amount of time as well as calling out these exceptions why do you think this language is part still part of the Vermont Constitution has persisted for so long okay that's a really good question I I think it can be a little bit confusing however first of all the Vermont Constitution does not use the term involuntary servitude it does refer clearly in the second section which mark was referring to to what was called indentured servitude was a which was a very common practice at that time and it allowed people to be bound not only by themselves but by their parents maybe even by a ship captain to work for a period of years without salary for simply room and board and what the second section does is said that's okay we nothing wrong with the institution it's to everybody's benefit in some ways mutually beneficial but we want to put a limit to abuses so they said once you reach the age of majority you can no longer be bound except by your own consent so that's part of it then there's the third section which basically says unless you are bound by law to pay debts court fees fines damages that sort of thing so there's a second exception which has to do with imprisonment for debts and debt prisons and I will have to tell you that was also a very common practice back in 1777 when this constitution was adopted so how do those two interrelate we can come to later but but the constitution itself really says there's the indentured servitude problem we want to put a limit to abuses and there's the debt what imprisonment for debt problem imprisonment for debt they didn't put any limits on it it seems to me so those are two different problems and and why do you think it's still in the constitution well I will tell you the Vermont Constitution does have a provision in the constitution chapter 2 section 40 which in so many terms says there shall be no imprisonment for debt so that sort of superseded that little tail end provision okay 2010 constitutional yeah yeah so that part of the the question I think can be answered that imprisonment for debt is no longer constitutionally or legally possible in Vermont now there are ways to kind of get around that just a little bit for example if somebody doesn't show up for child support hearing doesn't show up when a court has ordered the individual to pay child support what courts do is that they can find that individual in contempt and can imprison the individual for contempt but they can't imprison him for failure to pay the debt so there are kind of ways to get around that a little bit but in any event simple answer it's still in the constitution the imprisonment for debt because it's been superseded the other provision is the is the difficult one in the complicated one thanks peter mark anything to add on why Vermont is unique in indentured servitude which sounds like it may or may not have been involuntary depending on the age and time of the person and why this has persisted you know why it's persistent you know who knows it's it's really entertaining to listen to peter go through it and and I know there was some extensive testimony that was that was rendered surrounding this actually was reading some of it today so the whole thing is interesting but again at the end of the day we still come back to a constitution that has three clauses in it that clearly indicate that there are circumstances under which slavery is constitutionally permitted I just I would go back to one of the things that peter was that you were just mentioning earlier and I just want to flag for those who are watching that you have been at the law school for about 47 years and father time here so so so you were so you wrote some of these constitutional amendments you know so and you've so you've been around for a while and and you're you probably are a um a um you embody some of this this these conversations that we're talking about because you were there when it happened say for example like the consta the constitutional amendment in 1994 with proposal 11 which we'll talk about here in a little bit you know where which which actually prompted some additional work some legislative work we'll we'll talk more about that later when we start talking about the term freeman because this definitely came up during our deliberations but I would just say that as as far as the indentured servitude you know it kind of speaks to like I said just are totally like our ignorance we were just like just take slavery out of the constitution which was dumb because it you know it really led to ahead with you know us and the NAACP because we were saying yep looks good and they're like but slavery is still in there and we're like it says slavery is prohibited and and they were saying but it's in there and so it was really messy and we had to take some time off peter to figure out you know what what to do about that so our you know our desire or our demands or our expectations I guess you would say evolved over a period of time the more we came to understand what we were actually asking for really what we're asking for is is really not even only that the language in the constitution be removed but there be clear and emphatic language in the constitution that states that slavery is prohibited under all circumstances and so to move to a conversation about impact and contextualizing this into a wider context I mean this isn't in a vacuum I think we've had as a country questions about the evolution of slavery and how that manifests in the prison system of course questions even historically about debtor's prisons which of course didn't start in the US and who that impacts and so do you see this as part of a bigger movement and if so what where what context does that have and what impact do you think it will have especially nationally yeah I mean it's it's totally part of a bigger movement you know our partners at the abolished slavery national network have been doing the work we're you know we've been partnering with them currently there's four states that have abolished slavery today there's five on the ballot Vermont's one of them so we've got four other states that are out there and as we said back in 2019 you know we still envision being a country where for once in our existence that we could be a country where slavery is not permitted because soon as the ink dried in 1865 with the 13th amendment we all we did was move from chattel slavery to prison in states slavery I'd also add back to a point that we were making about this this whole idea of debt prison if you will or debtor's prison or I call it the criminalization of poverty it shouldn't be lost on is that we don't have jails here in Vermont which means anybody who goes to jail is in prison in the state and what we know and understand is that if you look at the national numbers of the one third of the 2.3 million people who are incarcerated somewhere it's about 800,000 folks of those 60 of them are in there because they can't pay bail and that averages out to be about 300 folks in the state of Vermont in prison because they can't pay bail is that Peter do you have anything to add in terms of context as far as this being a bigger movement the history of it well you know I think I want to take a step back if it's okay with with you and and and say well what does it mean to say that this first constitution abolished slavery because it means some things but it doesn't mean other things and it's really important to know exactly what was meant legally what it did mean and when the Vermont Supreme Court made this clear it meant that no inhabitant of the state of Vermont could legally legally own a slave read that first section that way that all persons are born equally free and independent no person no inhabitant of the state can legally own a slave second of all it meant that you can't purchase legally or sell legally slaves in Vermont I don't care what age and this is where mark and I may disagree but that's what the court said you simply cannot legally buy or sell slaves in the state of Vermont the third thing the court said if you buy a slave out of out of the state and get a bill of sale and you've got it in your pocket showing you own that slave the minute you cross the border into the state of Vermont that bill of sale is no longer legally recognizable those are the three things that was meant by abolition of slavery but now let me tell you what it didn't mean it didn't mean that you couldn't buy a slave out of state and illegally bring the slave into the state and continue to claim personally and socially ownership of the slave you couldn't do so legally but you could do that okay and in fact as mark knows were the vermonters who in fact did that some of the alan ethan alan's family in fact purchased slaves out of the state and brought them into the state and kept them there and it seemed to be a practice that was condoned by certain respectable parts of the burlington community a supreme court of vermont supreme court justice named jacob who was a lawyer down in winzer bought a slave over in new hampshire brought her back when she turned out to get sick and he didn't want to keep her anymore he dumped her on the town of winzer so you it didn't prohibit people from bringing slaves into the state illegally but it did prohibit anyone from claiming legal ownership of a slave in the state and where we differ is how did that apply to miners well with the court when it talks about it says it doesn't matter whether you're a minor or an adult you cannot legally buy and sell slaves in the state and i've always said if the opposite was true show me a case of remand case where the court upheld a bill of sale for a slave because they wouldn't do it because they couldn't because of article one let me just add something to that just for clarity because i don't want the train to get off the rails here with uh perhaps some inaccurate information or maybe incomplete information um and i'm trying and i want to be i'm trying to be like nice to peter because he hurt his leg not too long ago and i don't i don't want to i don't want to come at him too hard but um that supreme court decision that the professor keeps referring to is the jacob's decision and the decision was really not it was not a decision a court decision on slavery the court decision was actually a decision as to whether or not jacobs would have to repay the the town of winsor for keeping her after he threw her out and hypocritically and at the time jacobs was a member of the supreme court the state supreme court just so we can get the whole story here and after recusing himself his colleagues on the supreme court would not allow the bill of sale to be permissible talk about hypocritical they would not allow the bill of sale to be to be admissible in the court after she had resided with steven jacobs for 17 years as his slave and refused to care for him for her rather after she got blind and he threw her out the only reason that case was in court was because winsor was suing jacobs for the money and he didn't want to pay it and he got off the hook because his colleagues let him off the hook and they used the technicality of inadmissibility of the bill of sales so not only do i find that offensive i find that to be a personal affront and really it's ridiculous that that particular court case would even be used in this particular conversation i mean i cannot tell you how ridiculous the whole conversation is full circle all i'm really getting at is is that a decision of inadmissibility based upon the fact that his colleagues said that that particular bill of sales is not valid despite the fact that he had her as a slave for 17 years is not a court decision that says slavery is illegal in the state of or is illegal in the state of vermont there's two i may not be a professor at the law school but i know that now to be clear about this whole business about this this person's business i want to talk about that too because can i ask one more question and then you get back to that near mark is that okay so um peter and also just to maybe get back to the question on the larger movement and impact that i had asked mark that i think you were responding to is so you had said that legally it wasn't allowed which doesn't mean it wasn't practice and so do you have any thoughts on how that tension between what is legal and what is allowed maybe hasn't how that affects the conversation that we're having today in terms of of criminalizing poverty or in terms of the evolution of slavery or any of those well i think it is an important question because i say what abolishing slavery meant to the framers generation just meant those three things one you can't legally own a slave in vermont two you can't legally buy and sell a slave in vermont and three a bill of sale that you might have gotten in some other state when it comes into this state no longer is legally enforceable now mark has trouble with that because he said jacob's was a colleague of the other justices on the supreme court rule that way but i will tell you there's no evidence that they had any particular respect for or admiration for or felt collegial toward the third justice jacob i will tell you that if the shoe had been on the other foot if dina mason the slave had become healthy after he dumped her on the town and let the time and he said wait a minute i want her back i'm going to introduce the bill of sale i got over in new hampshire to show that i'm the legal owner and i'm entitled to have the supreme court of vermont would have ruled exactly the same way because they did so not as a matter of collegial hypocrisy but as a matter of principle because the vermont constitution says all persons are born equally free and independent and to allow one person to claim ownership over another is fundamentally inconsistent with that bedrock principle so this is where we disagree a little bit but i haven't found no evidence at all that they did so for cynical or improper motives it was a matter of principle and everything that they wrote and said indicates it was a matter of principle great and just to go back do you have any thoughts on how that impacts any of the conversations that we're having today in terms of not a legal question that's a morality question no that's really an important question we come back to it which is to say that what abolishing slavery meant had a very limited meaning it didn't prohibit people from bringing slaves illegally into the state people did it okay i think that was you know constitutional provisions can only do so much and it didn't prohibit that it didn't in any way impact on what you might call the seeds of systemic racism in this country because to say whether or not you can legally bring a slave into the state as a practical matter you can it obviously contributes to a kind of racist reaffirms racist tendencies on the part of some people so it is an important limitation all i'm saying is when you talk about abolishing slavery in article one it just had those that limited meaning so i'm gonna ask you another question mark and then you can go to some of the things you're maybe trying to get to that i interrupted we've got plenty of time maybe they'll just vote it down and we'll have another four years which is the the question of vermont exceptionalism so we're talking a lot about what is allowed versus what is it a forced and part of that is also the story of vermont being referred to as an abolitionist states and i'm curious as to how you think this proposal affects the story but also again again i'd love to bring it back to the present not just the you know supreme court decisions at the time or the um original constitution to being what does that mean about our like what does that mean about the conversation we're having as a state now today so any any thoughts on on vermont is uh um you know exceptionalism i i i get tired of talking about vermont as being exceptional as um and i think it's it's really i don't think it's a i mean respectful i don't think it's a really good use of our time i but i do think that um you know there's much to say you know about where we are you know just being kind of stuck because there are many people who who are you know just um you know infactuated with our our history our past um i respect that peter is a historian he didn't he didn't mention much about it but he's not just a professor in a constitutional law expert but he's also a but he's a historian but and and i respect that i like that a lot about him and um there's a lot of folks who embrace that look you know here we are here we are here this is now and um you know this is um you know the work that we're doing as i said at the top of the at the top of the hour it's just focused on systemic racism we know like i told you again at the top of the hour when the smoke clears you're still going to have a constitution that you know that has uh some traced some evidence that and there were some circumstances under which slavery was permit permitted um you know you're back to the broader um implications you know what we didn't really talk about is is the fact that vermont was the first state to um to constitutionalize slavery in any way to be clear that's what vermont was the first to do there was never a state in the united states that had any language concerning slavery within their constitution at all before vermont i can say that categorically because we figured that out along the way and what they did is is when they did when they did become the first state to introduce slavery into their constitution they they did so not with an abolition but with three exception clauses there would go on to be ohio um oregon in alabama in the northwest territory who would also emulate vermont by creating the exception clauses so would the united states in the in the 13th amendment and then towards the towards the civil war towards the end of the civil war almost another 24 states would emulate vermont with the introduction of what we call exception clauses into their constitutions as well we should feel exceptional we started something it wasn't good it was a mess because what it created was a gateway into convict leasing nationally so yes there are broader implications all of this we figured out along the way um regarding this argument about persons to explode that what i'm holding in my hand right now is is this is proposal 11 2014 the language of persons never existed in our constitution in article one before 1994 you wrote this with the supreme court the you're on the transmittal so okay go ahead tell me what i wrote up the bottom line is that you know you keep talking about the article one saying persons and therefore persons now the reason why we're in the bushes is because we just got pulled in the bushes when we get out of the bushes we're still again when the smoke clears we're still going to be looking at a constitution that says that there are three exception clauses for slavery you know you can slice this thing dice it uh bring on dick uh McCormick next week whatever we can have that conversation with him too bottom line is is that what we're here to do is is to abolish slavery that is all all of these intentions and all that other stuff as well as the homework we pulled the constitutional amendment for 1994 we see that the original language in article one is that all men all men and there are probably you know upwards of i would say maybe 27 other instances where you inserted persons in this in 1994 as well as 28 instances where you removed Freeman although you decided to leave it at the heading of chapter 42 so all i'm really getting at here with this is that that argument about persons is invalid because it was not language in the original constitution if we were to have a conversation about this whole you know persons business you know i'd rather be having a conversation about whether or not we're just going to abolish slavery in our constitution so peter i'll let you answer that specific thing as well but i also to go back to the question also curious to hear what you think about how this proposal affects the story of her who vermont has been and who we want to be and also feel free to respond to mark well we've got quite a complex set of questions now so i will get to i'll get to that last one and don't let me get away from doing that first of all i confess guilt that i am responsible in part for a movement to try to to to propose and have the vermont constitution rewritten in gender neutral language and we did that because of a deep sense that the language of the vermont constitution ought to reflect the reality that men and women are equal i did make suggestions about how to do that and one of them was that we changed the word man wherever we find it to person the supreme court however was authorized for making those changes and it was very deliberately constrained in doing so you cannot change the meaning of these provisions by making the language gender neutral what does that mean it means that men and mark is absolutely right in the original constitution was the term that was used but it was used in the generic sense as it often is and has been to include men women children all men are born equally free and independent men are not born that includes minors as well well black people weren't men you know in at that time it not until it's not to the 14th amendment where black people men it was that's why it matters mark let's wait for in any event that was the understanding and it was i don't believe there was an understanding that that the framers thought well women can be legally bought and sold in the state of vermont there's no evidence at all that it was read that way okay so i will just say men was used generically it was understood generically to include men women boys girls everybody okay persons and that's all the supreme court was authorized to do and it rendered the vermont constitution in gender neutral language second point in response to mark vermont was the first state to constitutionalize slavery he is absolutely right it's the first state to include the word slavery in a state constitution now why did that happen well as i said before the primary concern with the second section of article one was to prevent abuse of the institution of indentured servitude by saying if you're a servant i don't care or an apprentice i don't care what the terms are in which you arrived in that status when you reach the age of 21 maturity you cannot continue to be bound by some legal document without your own consent now somebody at the constitution convention said you know what'll happen these scumbags that are bringing slaves into the state from other states illegally will say oh we're not covered by that provision making maturity a cut off of the period of time in which you can be bound without your consent make sure that slaves if there are that have been brought illegally into the state are entitled to the exact same protection so that's how it gets in if that's what it means to constitutionalize slavery that's what it means but that's how that slavery got into that second section of the constitution now does does all of this stuff we're talking about somehow tarnish that sense that vermont was basically a leading abolitionist state it was the first state to in fact ban or prohibit slavery in the limited sense that i say now it doesn't tarnish it at all the first major section of article one still is retained there vermont was the state in which lincoln got the highest percentage of votes in the 1860 election because it was so strongly an anti-slavery state vermont contributed probably as many or almost as many uh soldiers to the civil war as any other northern state volunteer soldiers okay it just it runs counter to vermont's history to say that somehow it embraced slavery it uh it favored slavery uh on the other hand i don't think that's ever been the point on the other hand as we've recognized it only was what abolition meant was simply those three core legal requirements and it didn't deal away with slavery or racism as a problem in the state and the state's history is really quite complicated in that other respect great so we'll go to final question mark we'll have a rebuttal everybody just gets one minute because we're gonna run out of time and so mark feel free to address any history any rebuttals as well but i think i would love if you could just state um how you specifically are encouraging voters to vote on this ballot item um and yeah any other misinformation any last things that you want to say well first i just want to say that um at the end of the day you know here here we are this is where i told you we'd be at the end of this conversation uh we still have a constitution that provides provisions for slavery i figured if i let peter talk long enough he'd convince you to um to to say yes um he he actually uh what has been my best advocate in in the legislature actually he was at yes then he was at no then he was at yes and i think you might be at no again but um so thank you for that um yeah i i don't i think for if if anybody's watched the entire program i don't think there's anything left for me to say actually so i just want to more importantly just thank you and thanks um you know thank the folks for having this come out uh let's let's abolish slavery thanks mark peter how are you two words the proposal as it exists came out of the senate government operations committee we really sat down and discussed all these issues very thoughtfully and very intelligently very responsibly different members of the committee differed but in the end my view was look the truth is vermont was the first state constitution to abolish slavery in this limited sense but if this language is going to continue to be a source of confusion and difficulty ready for it then you can make it clean and simple by adopting the language of proposition two i confess i'm guilty in that respect to mark i actually said hey why don't we copy something like the colorado proposition just say indentured servitude and slavery are prohibited and get rid of all the stuff that's causing problems so it's okay with me if people vote for it i think we lose a little bit of historical sense but that is a small price to pay if we just have something clean and simple great and there you have it everyone um thank you for training into town meeting tv ongoing coverage of statewide and regional candidates and ballot items you can find this and more forums at www.ch17.tv don't forget to vote on or before november 8th uh this year ballots will be mailed to all registered voters in the state um thank you for watching and sharing town meeting tv if you're not already please subscribe to our town meeting tv youtube channel thank you so much for joining