“I don’t know whether it was the climate, or the water, or what it was, but these Vermonters have always been the most cantankerous, independent folks in America. They just would never belong to anybody. England, France, New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire would bargain and traffic and  trade Vermont around; and then, just as they had got everything settled to everybody’s satisfaction, Vermont would gum up the trade by refusing to be traded.”
 

-- From The History of Vermont, by Will M. Cressey