Publisher's note: We published this editorial in our first July issue of Vermont Commons four years ago. Every year it seems more and more relevant. Happy Independence Day - July 4, 2009.

Let's begin with the "shout heard 'round the world."

The words of Thomas Jefferson and the first Continental Congress in 1776.

The opening moments in what has become one of the most important
documents about "freedom" and "democracy" in modern world history.

Declaration of Independence.

The Declaration of Independence.

A document that is, at the core, about secession.

Why peacefully secede from the United States? Why create an
independent Vermont Republic (again), interested in a free and
unfettered exchange of ideas, goods, services, and good will with the
rest of the globe? How would we actually go about doing such a thing?

That's why Vermont Commons: Voices of Independence is here. To explore these questions.

Here are the words of Thomas Jefferson's "Declaration" in 1776. As
citizens of the richest and most powerful empire in the world,
Jefferson and the members of the Continental Congress challenged the
legitimacy of the British imperial government's tyrannical rule over
the frontiers of their empire.

Remember?

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one
people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with
another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and
equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle
them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they
should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted
among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these
ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to
institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and
organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely
to effect their safety and happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established
should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly
all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer,
while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the
forms to which they are accustomed.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably
the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute
despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such
government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

Of what relevance are Jefferson's words today?

Today, we Americans are citizens of the richest and most powerful empire the world has ever known.

An empire that is in serious trouble, for reasons we will be exploring in Vermont Commons in the months to come.

And we Vermonters live on the frontier, the borderlands, the fringes of this empire.

As Thomas Jefferson and the English colonists lived on the fringes of empire in 1776.

If you believe those colonists had a right to pursue independence, then you must grant today's Vermonters that same right.

And, we hope, you will lend your voice to the discussion.

—ROB WILLIAMS