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Very rare handbill of South Carolina’s “Ordinance of Secession,” the fateful act dissolving America’s union. with charity for all”
[CIVIL WAR]. Handbill: “An Ordinance to Dissolve the Union…” [Charleston, S.C.], 5¼ x 7 in. Printed on or before December 29, 1860.
Inventory #10534.01 $30,000
Historical Background:
There are three differences between this printing and the official text of the ordinance. First, the date appears in the heading, but isn’t in the official text. Second, there are quotation marks around “The Constitution of The United States of America” in the heading of the official text, but not here. Finally, this broadside writes of “the union now existing,” while the official text uses the word “subsisting.”
It had been argued that this handbill prints a draft prior to the resolution’s passage, but we haven’t found evidence of that. Rather, the differences are consistent with a document rushed into print for public consumption.
The famous (and far more common) Charleston Mercury – Extra edition, published on December 20th, was large; there would have been a ready market for a mailable version.
With only five known copies, this is a rare relic of secession. The Virginia State Library and Virginia Historical Society have the two known institutional copies. One of the two others we know of in private hands was mailed under a cover letter dated December 29, 1860, demonstrating that this was printed within days of secession.
In reaction to Abraham Lincoln’s election, several southern states had vowed to leave the Union rather than be governed by a “Black Republican.” On December 20, 1860, South Carolina became the first to secede. Four days later, the state convention adopted a “Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina,” which complained about northern agitation against slavery and the refusal of northerners to enforce the fugitive slave act. They cited Lincoln’s declaration, during his 1858 debates with Stephen Douglas, that the “Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free.” By the time of Lincoln’s inauguration (March 4, 1861), Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas had followed South Carolina’s lead in secession.
Provenance: William Turner, purchased about 25 years ago in a scrapbook with other Civil War material.
Exhibited: May 30, 2009 - Jan. 3, 2010 at Heinz History Center’s Lincoln: The Constitution and the Civil War exhibit
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