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TEXAS ORDINANCE OF SECESSION.

[Passed Feb. 1, 1561.]

Sec. 1. Whereas, the Federal government has failed to accomplish the purposes of the compact of union between these States in giving protection either to the persons of our people upon an exposed frontier, or to the property of our citizens; and whereas, the action of the Northern States is violative of the compact between the States and the guarantees of the constitution; and whereas, the recent development in Federal affairs make it evident that the power of the Federal Government is sought to be made a weapon with which to strike down the interests and property of the people of Texas and her sister slaveholding States, instead of permitting it to be, as was intended, our shield against outrage and aggression: Therefore, we, the people of the State of Texas, by delegates in the Convention assembled, do declare and ordain that the ordinance adopted by our convention of delegates on the 4th day of July A.D., 1845, and afterwards ratified by us, under which the Republic of Texas was admitted into the Union with other States, and became a party to the compact styled, "The Constitution of the United States of America," be and is hereby repealed and annulled.

VIRGINIA ORDINANCE OF SECESSION.

[Passed April 17, 1861.]

The people of Virginia in the ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America, adopted by them in Convention on the 25th day of June 1788, having declared that the powers granted ́under the said constitution were derived from the people of the United States, and might be resumed whensoever the same should be perverted to their injury and oppression, and the Federal government having perverted said powers, not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern slaveholding States.

Now, therefore we, the people of Virginia, do declare and ordain, that the ordinance adopted by the people of this State in Convention on the 25th day of June 1788, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified, and all acts of the General Assembly of this State ratifying or adopting amendments to said Constitution, are hereby repealed and abrogated; that the Union between the State of Virginia and the other States under the Constitution aforesaid is hereby dissolved, and that the State of Virginia is in the full possession and exercise of all the rights of sovereignty which belong and appertain to a free and independent State. And they do further declare that said Constitution of the United States of America is no longer binding on any of the citizens of this State.

SECESSION OF THE STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA.

[Passed Dec. 20th, 1860, after Mr. Lincoln's
election, but before his inauguration.]

An Ordinance to dissolve the Union between South Carolina and the other States united with her under the compact entitled the Constitution of the United States of America.

We, the people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, that the ordinance adopted by us in Convention, on the 23d day of May, in the year of our Lord 1788, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified, and also all Acts and parts of Acts of the General Assembly of this State ratefying the amendments of the said Constitution, are hereby repealed, and that the Union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of the United States of America, is hereby dissolved.

ALABAMA ORDINANCE OF SECESSION.

[Passed Jan. 11, 1861.]

Whereas, the election of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin to the offices of President and Vice-President of the United States of America by a sectional party avowedly hostile to the domestic

institutions, and peace and security of the people of the State of Alabama, following upon the heels of many and dangerous infractions of the Constitution of the United States, by many of the States and people of the Northern section, is a political wrong of so insulting and menacing a character, as to justify the people of the State of Alabama in the adoption of prompt and decided measures for their future peace and security.

Therefore, be it declared and ordained, by the people of the State of Alabama, in Convention assembled, that the State of Alabama now withdraws from the Union, known as the United States of America, and henceforth ceases to be one of the said United States, and is, and of right ought to be a sovereign independent State.

Bills of grievances were made out, and published, as in the case of South Carolina.

DECLARATION OF CAUSES.

"And now the State of South Carolina having resumed her separate and equal place among nations, deems it due to herself, to the remaining United States of America, and to the nations of the world, that she should declare the immediate causes which have led to this act.

We hold that the Government thus established (the United States Government) is subject to the two great principles asserted in the declaration of inde

pendence; and we hold further, that the mode of its formation subjects it to a third fundamental principle, namely, the law of compact. We maintain that in every compact between two or more parties, the obligation is mutual; that the failure of one of the contracting parties to perform a material part of the agreement, entirely releases the obligation of the other; and that, where no arbiter is provided, each party is remitted to his own judgment to determine the fact of failure, with all its consequences.

In the present case, the fact is established with certainty. We assert that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused for years past to fulfil their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own statutes for the proof.

The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth article, provides as following:

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No person held to service or labour in one State under the laws thereof escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labour, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labour may be due."

This stipulation was so material to the compact that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the ordinance for the

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