as also was a resolution that "the passage of the
Ordinance be proclaimed by the firing of artillery and ringing of the
bells of the city, and such other demonstrations as the people may deem
appropriate on the passage of the great Act of Deliverance and Liberty;"
after which the Convention jubilantly adjourned to meet, and ratify,
that evening. At the evening session of this memorable Convention, the
Governor and Legislature attending, the famous Ordinance was read as
engrossed, signed by all the delegates, and, after announcement by the
President that "the State of South Carolina is now and henceforth a Free
and Independent Commonwealth;" amid tremendous cheering, the Convention
adjourned. This, the first Ordinance of Secession passed by any of the
Revolting States, was in these words:

"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.'

"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 23rd 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 ratifying 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Constitution, are hereby repealed; and that the Union now subsisting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."

Thus, and in these words, was joyously adopted and ratified, that solemn
Act of Separation which was doomed to draw in its fateful train so many
other Southern States, in the end only to be blotted out with the blood
of hundreds of thousands of their own brave sons, and their equally
courageous Northern brothers.

State after State followed South Carolina in the mad course of Secession
from the Union. Mississippi passed a Secession Ordinance, January 9,
1861. Florida followed, January 10th; Alabama, January 11th; Georgia,
January 18th; Louisiana, January 26th; and Texas, February 1st;
Arkansas, North Carolina, and Virginia held back until a later period;
while Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Maryland, and Delaware, abstained
altogether from taking the fatal step, despite all attempts to bring
them to it.

In the meantime, however, South Carolina had put on a