Beschreibung:

CIVIL WAR - SOUTH CAROLINA ACT OF SECESSION]. Caption title: 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... N.p. [Charleston: Evans & Cogswell?] n.d. [ca 20 September 1860]. Small 2 o broadside (293 x 208 mm). Printed in bold italic and roman types. (Neatly laid down.) In excellent condition. ONE OF THE EARLIEST CONFEDERATE IMPRINTS: SOUTH CAROLINA'S OFFICIAL ACT OF SECESSION, PROBABLY PRINTED FOR DELEGATES AT THE SECESSION CONVENTION. The brief text of the resolution dissolving the compact between the state and the Federal government passed in a tumultuous vote at the state capital in Columbia on 20 September 1860. The historic resolution, which ostensibly revoked South Carolina's 1778 ratification of the U.S. Constitution, was largely the work of Robert Barnwell Rhett, editor of the Charleston Mercury . The resolution--the only item on the agenda that day--was passed unanimously at 1:15 p.m. on December 20, with a longer, legalistic Declaration of Causes which argued that South Carolina was justified in seceeding, since Northern States had ceased to comply with obligations under the Constitution, especially as concerned slavery and the Fugitive Slave Law. South Carolina's revolutionary act was followed in close succession by the states of Mississippi (January 9), Florida (January 10), Alabama (January 11), Georgia (January 19), Louisiana (January 26), Texas (February 1), Virginia (April 17), Arkansas (May 6), North Carolina (May 20) and Tennessee (June 8). The die of rebellion was cast. The resolution is here set up in the familiar "reading copy" format for use in debate: each line of text is carefully numbered, printed double spaced to allow for manuscript corrections. It is therefore quite likely that no more than several hundred copies were produced for the use of delegates on the day of the momentous meeting. It is also likely that the printers were Evans & Cogswell, job printers in Charleston styled in other imprints "Printers to the Convention." It was they who printed the lithographic facsimile of the signed resolution (a copy of that broadside sold at Christie's 24 May 2002, lot 33, $65,725). In any case, THIS BROADSIDE IS OF VERY GREAT RARITY: only three copies are recorded, the present and examples at Emory and the Huntington Library. Parrish & Willingham 3795; cf. Sabin 87444.