In the play and film 1776, one of the delegates from New York says that in the state legislature, everybody talks very loud and very fast and never seems to get anywhere. This may or may not be true, but the fact is, they did have some specific instructions for their delegates to the Second Continental Congress. One of them was that New York would be expected to oppose independence for as long as possible. That was probably because they were looking at Vermont as a model and preparing to declare themselves an independent nation.

Claude is originally from New York, and he’s of the opinion that most New Yorkers still think of themselves as members of a separate nation. But that’s a different debate.

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