A Documentary History of the American Civil War Era: Volume 2, Political Arguments

Georgia Ordinance of Secession, January 19, 1861

Georgia Ordinance of Secession, January 19, 1861 Journal of the Public and Secret Proceedings of the Convention of the People of Georgia , Held in Milledgeville and Savannah in 1861, Together with the Ordinances Adopted, Published by Order of the Convention (Milledgeville, Ga.: Boughton, Nisbet & Barnes, State Printer, 1861), 31–32. Less than a month after South Carolina passed its secession ordinance , Georgia followed with its own ordinance. Though the documents parallel each other, some differences exist, such as Georgia ’s claim that it has assumed its own sovereignty “which belong and appertain to a Free and Independent State.” On its face, this ordinance suggests that Georgia’s delegates to its secession convention had no intension of joining the future so-called Confederacy; rather, their language suggests that the Georgia secession convention had decided to go it alone as a separate and independent state. It may be that this splintering of the states from the Union, this centrifugal force of secession, that President Abraham Lincoln had in mind when he wrote in his March 4, 1861, first inaugural address that “Plainly, the central idea of secession, is the essence of anarchy.” Four days later, the Georgia Convention backed away from the extreme stance it took in this Ordinance of Secession and agreed to cooperate with other southern states “in the formation of a Southern Confederacy.” Republic of Georgia. Ordinance of Secession, Passed January 19, 1861. an ordinance to dissolve the Union between the State of Georgia and other States united with her under a compact of government, entitled “the constitution of the united states of america:” We, the People of the State of Georgia, in Convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, that the Ordinance adopted by the people of the State of Georgia, in Convention on the Second Day of January in Documentary History of the American Civil War Era 82 the Year of Our Lord Seventeen Hundred and Eighty-eight, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was assented to, ratified, and adopted; and also, all acts, and parts of acts, of the General Assembly of this State, ratifying and adopting amendments of the said Constitution, are hereby Repealed, Rescinded, and Abrogated. We do further Declare and Ordain, that the Union now subsisting between the State of Georgia and other States, under the name of the United States of America , Is Hereby Dissolved, and that the State of Georgia is in the full possession and exercise of all those rights of Sovereignty which belong and appertain to a Free and Independent State. George W. Crawford, of Richmond, President. Attest: this January 21, 1861, A. R. Lamas, Secretary. ...