Beschreibung:

CIVIL WAR SOUTH CAROLINA ACT OF SECESSION]. The State of South Carolina. At a Convention of the People of the State...begun and held at Columbia [17-20 December 1860]...An Ordinance to dissolve the Union between the State of South Carolina and the other States...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...done at Charleston, 20 December 1860... Charleston, S.C.: Evans & Cogswell, n.d. [ca.20 September 1860]. Folio broadside (31 7/16 x 25 15/16 in.), lithographed in black ink on heavy wove paper, dampstains at bottom and one upper corner, small hole in blank margin, but in generally good condition, in a fine giltwood frame. ONE OF THE EARLIEST CONFEDERATE IMPRINTS: SOUTH CAROLINA'S OFFICIAL ACT OF SECESSION An imposing large-format lithographic facsimile of the original manuscript Act of Secession, carefully prepared from the original engrossed document, with facsimile signatures of D.F. Jamison, President of the Convention, as well as those of the 169 delegates to the Secession Convention convened by Governor Pickens (even the ink blots which mar the original are carefully reproduced by the lithographers). The historic resolution, which was intended to revoke South Carolina's ratification (in May 1788) of the U.S. Constitution, was largely the work of Robert Barnwell Rhett, editor of the Charleston Mercury (which printed a well-known broadside announcement of the vote, the day it was taken, proclaiming "The Union is Dissolved!"). The resolution was passed unanimously at 1:15 p.m. on December 20. It was accompanied by a longer, legalistic Declaration of Causes which attempted to prove that South Carolina was justified in secession since Northern States had ceased to comply with their obligations under the Constitution, especially as concerned slavery and the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law. South Carolina's 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 facsimile Act of Secession was no doubt issued in the immediate aftermath of the secession vote; Evans & Cogswell were established job printers in Charleston and in other post secession imprints style themselves "Printers to the Convention," perhaps indicating that the issuance of the facsimile was, in some sense, under official auspices, intended to underline the official nature of such a momentous enactment. Parrish & Willingham 3794 (recording copies in many of the larger research collections); Sabin 87444. RARE: according to American Book Prices Current, no copy has appeared at auction in at least a quarter century.