“Wasn’t “the Republic of Vermont” and entity early on, before Vermont became the 14th state?”
Vermont became independent from the crown in 1777 and didn’t join the union until 1791. It’s evident that there was an intent to join the union, but due to some land squabbles with NY it didn’t happen until later.
Kind of an odd situation from what I’ve read and analogous to the situation in Texas where the Texians became independent from Mexico for a time before later joining the union.
New York claimed Vermont. I think for a while, New Hampshire did too.