tates, was the solemn import attached
to the word _ordinance_. The South gave it a significance which
elevated its authority above the Constitution, and above the laws
of their own State and of the United States. And yet, neither in
legal definition nor in any ordinary use of the word, was there
precedent or authority for attaching to it such impressive meaning.
An _ordinance_ of Parliament was but a temporary Act which the
Commons might alter at their pleasure. An _Act_ of Parliament
could not be changed except by the consent of king, lords, and
commons. In this country, aside from the use of the word in
declaring the freedom of the North-west Territory in 1787, _ordinance_
has uniformly been applied to Acts of inferior bodies, to the
councils of cities, to the authorities of towns, to the directors
of corporations,--rarely if ever to the Acts of legislative assemblies
which represent the power of the State.

It is still more singular that, in passing the ordinance of Secession,
the convention worded it so that it should seem to be the repeal
of the ordinance of the 23d of May, 1788, whereby the Constitution
of the United States was ratified by South Carolina, when, in simple
truth, the Act of that State ratifying the Federal Constitution
was never called an ordinance. Mirabeau said that words were
things; and this word was so used in the proceedings of Secession
conventions as to impress the mind of the Southern people with its
portentous weight and solemnity. With an amendment to the
constitutions of their States they had all been familiar. In the
enactment of their laws thousands had participated. But no one of
them had ever before seen or heard or dreamed of any thing of such
momentous and decisive character as an Ordinance. Even to this
day, when disunion, secession, rebellion have all been destroyed
by the shock of arms, and new institutions have been built over
their common grave, the word "ordinance" has, in the minds of many
people both in the North and in the South, a sound which represents
the very majesty of popular power.

If the other Southern States would have been left to their own
counsels, South Carolina would have stood alone, and her Secession
of 1860 would have proved as abortive as her Nullification of 1832.
The Disunion movement in the remaining States of the South originated
in Washington. Finding that the Cotton States, especially those
bordering on the Gulf of Mexico, were moving t