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South Carolina's Act of Secession

SOUTH CAROLINA - Act of Secession. The State of South Carolina. At a Convention of the People of the State of South Carolina, begun and holden at Columbia, on the seventeenth day of December [1860] ... 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" ... and that the union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of "The United States of America" is hereby dissolved.

Charleston, SC: Evans & Cogswell, [March 1861]. Large lithographed broadside (866 x 685 mm). Signed in print by President of the Secession Convention D. F. Jamison and 169 delegates. Condition: professionally cleaned and restored by Etherington Conservation Center, with paper losses principally along in the right margin filled, two words with several letters supplied in facsimile, mended tears, and the entire broadside backed with Japanese paper. Matted. one of the earliest confederate imprints: an official facsimile printing of south carolina's act of secession prepared directly from the original engrossed document. Following the vote of secession on 20 December, Charleston printers Evans and Cogswell were asked to prepare a copy of the official ordinance for use by members of the Convention. On 28 March 1861, a report from the Committee on Printing in the Journal of the Convention states the broadside was "in a style creditable to the art; and by a careful comparison with the original." Indeed, the lithographers were so careful in maintaining an exact likeness, that this facsimile even includes ink blots found on the original. Two hundred copies were ordered of the Charleston printers by the Convention. We could locate only two other copies of this historic broadside appearing at auction in the last quarter century. Crandall 1887; Parrish & Willingham 3794; Sabin 87444.