[Civil War]: [Secession Ordinance]:

$60,000 · Offered by William Reese Company

AN ORDINANCE TO DISSOLVE THE UNION BETWEEN THE STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA AND OTHER STATES UNITED WITH HER UNDER THE COMPACT ENTITLED "THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF ... One of the earliest Confederate imprints, this is the South Carolina Ordinance of Secession, printed for delegates at the secession convention. It is the document which caused the departure of South Carolina from the Union and set the nation irrevocably on the path to the Civil War, and is thus one of the most important printed documents of the entire Civil War.After Lincoln's election, South Carolina moved vigorously to follow through its threat to secede from the Union. A secession convention was called, and assembled at Charleston on Dec. 20, 1860. Their entire business was to debate the issue of secession, which they favored overwhelmingly, and to settle on the wording of a secession ordinance. Within the day, the 169 members of the Convention voted unanimously for the ordinance.This is the printing of the ordinance made for the use of the delegates to the Convention. The ordinance was set up in the form of a "reading bill," familiar to most delegates as the typical form of a legislative bill in working draft, with the body of the text in numbered, double-spaced lines to facilitate the making of corrections. Following the title, given above, the text reads:"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

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.