Beschreibung:

CIVIL WAR SOUTH CAROLINA SECESSION]. SOUTH CAROLINA CONVENTION. Charleston Mercury Extra: Passed Unanimously at 1:15 o'clock, P.M. December 20th 1860. 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 America'...The Union is Dissolved! [Charleston, S.C., 20 December 1860]. Folio broadside, 24 1/8 x 11¾ in., mounted, browned, stained at bottom, a few small holes, some creasing , framed. Crandall 1888; Ray O. Hummell, Southeastern Broadsides Before 1877 no. 2434 (locating six copies); Sabin 87439; Streeter sale 1271. A COPY OF THE FIRST CONFEDERATE IMPRINT: ISSUED FIFTEEN MINUTES AFTER SOUTH CAROLINA'S VOTE TO SECEDE FROM THE UNION The Election of 1860, which thrust the Illinois lawyer Abraham Lincoln into the White House, was also the decisive catalyst to secession and Civil War. The circumstances of the 1850s had allowed southern fire-eaters to pave a road to rebellion. The initial stages of secession required little contemplation: "because the ground had long since been plowed and planted, the harvest of disunion came quickly after the thunderstorm of Lincoln's election" (McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom , p. 234). Amidst fireworks, public rallies, playing bands and militia musters, the South Carolina legislature met in a special convention to pass the declaration of secession so boldly announced on this broadside: "We the People of the State of South Carolina, in Convention Assembled, do declare and ordain...that the union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of 'The United States of America,' is hereby dissolved..." This is the first printing of the secession ordinance, passed by the state convention called by Governor Pickens on December 20. It was the first such secession resolution enacted. South Carolina's action was followed in close succession by Mississippi (January 9), Florida (January 10), Alabama (January 11), Georgia (January 19), Louisiana (January 26), and Texas (February 1). Virginia (April 17), Arkansas (May 6), North Carolina (May 20) and Tennessee (June 8) followed suit only after Lincoln's call for volunteers in response to the attack upon Fort Sumter.