South Carolina Ordinance of Secession

South Carolina was the first state of those that eventually formed the Confederate States of America to secede from the United States of America. On November 10, 1860, the South Carolina legislature called a special convention to consider the question of secession. On December 20, 1860, they adopted the Ordinance of Secession. The Ordinance of Secession as adopted in the city of Charleston is as follows:

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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 23d day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, 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all acts and parts of acts of the General Assembly of this State ratifying amendments of said Constitution are hereby repealed and that the union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States under the name of the United States of America is hereby dissolved.

Done at Charleston the 20th day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty.

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The following are the signers of the Ordinance of Secession and the parishes which they represented in the convention:

Abbeville: Thomas Chiles Perrin, Edward Noble, J. H. Wilson, Thomas Thomson, David Louis Wardlaw, John Alfred Calhoun.

All-Saints: John Izard Middleton, Benjamin E. Session.

Anderson: J. N. Whitner, James L. Orr, J. P. Reed, R.F. Simpson, Benjamin Franklin Mauldin.

Barnwell: Lewis Malone Ayer, Jr., W. Peronneau Finley, J. J. Brabham, Benjamin W. Lawton, D. F. Jamison.

Chester: John McKee, Thomas W. Moore, Richard Woods, A. Q. Dunovant.

Chesterfield: John A. Inglis, Henry Mciver, Stephen Jackson.

Christ Church: W. Pickney Shingler, Peter P. Bonneau.

Clarendon: John P. Richardson, John J. Ingram.

Darlington: Edgar W. Charles, Julias A. Dargan, Isaac D. Wilson, John M. Timmons.

Edgefield: Francis Hugh Wardlaw, R. G. M. Dunovant, James parsons Carroll, William Gregg, Andrew J. Hammond, James Tompkins, James C. Smyly.

Fairfield: John Hugh Means, William Strother Lyles, Henry Campbell Davis, John Buchanan.

Greenville: James C. Furman, P.E. Duncan, W. K. Easley, James Harrison, W. H. Campbell.

Horry: Thomas W. Beaty, William J. Ellis.

Kershaw: T. J. Withers, James C. Chestnut, Jr.

Lancaster: R. L. Crawford, W. C. Cauthen, D. P. Robinson.

Laurens: H. C. Young, Y. W. Garlington, John D. Williams, W. D. Watts, Thomas Wier.

Lexington: H. I. Caughman, John C. Geiger, Paul Quatlebaum.

Marion: W. B. Rowell, Chesley D. Evans, William W. Harllee, A. W. Bethea.

Marlboro: E. W. Goodwin, William D. Johnson, Alex McLeod.

Newberry: John P. Kinard, Robert Moorman, Joseph Caldwell, Simeon Fair.

Orange: Thomas Worth Glover, Lawrence M. Keitt, Donald Rowe Barton.

Pickens: William Hunter, Andrew F. Lewis, Robert A. Thompson, William S. Grisham, John Maxwell.

Prince William's: John E. Frampton, W. Ferguson Hutson.

Richland: W. F. DeSaussure, William Hopkins, James H. Adams, Maxcy Gregg, John H. Kinsler.

St. Andrew's: Ephraim M. Clark, Alex. H. Brown.

St. Bartholomew's: E. St. P. Bellinger, Merrick E. Carn, E. R. Henderson, Peter Stokes.

St. George's, Dorchester: Daniel Flood, David C. Appleby.

St. Helena: R. W. Barnwell, Joseph Daniel Pope.

St. James's, Goose Creek: John M. Shingler, C. P. Brown.

St. James's, Santee: Daniel DuPre, A. Mazyck.

St. John's, Berkeley: William Cain, P. G. Snowden.

St. John's, Colleton: George W. Seabrook, Sr., John Jenkins.

St. Luke's: R. J. Davant, E. M. Seabrook.

St. Matthew's: John J. Wannamaker.

St. Paul's: Elias B. Scott, Joseph E. Jenkins.

St. Peter's: Langdon Cheves, George Rhodes.

St. Philip's and St. Michael's: A. G. Magrath, William Porcher Miles, John Townsend, Robert N. Gourdin, H. W. Connor, Theodore D. Wagner, R. Barnwell Rhett, C. G. Memminger, Gabriel Manigault, John Julius Pringle Smith, Isaac W. Hayne, John H. Honour, Richard DeTreville, Thomas M. Hanckel, A. W. Burnet, Thomas Y. Simons, L. W. Spratt, Williams Middleton, R. D. Richardson, B. H. Rutledge, Edward McCrady, Francis J. Porcher.

St. Stephen's: T. L. Gourdin, John S. Palmer.

St. Thomas's and St. Dennis's: John L. Nowell, John S. O'Hear.

Spartanburg: John G. Landrum, B. B. Foster, Benjamin F. Kilgo, J. H. Carlisle, Simpson Bobo, William Curtis.

Sumter: H. D. Green, Matthew P. Mayes, Thomas Reese English, Sr., Albertus Chambers Spain.

Union: J. M. Gadberry, J. S. Sims, William H. Gist, James Jefferies.

Williamsburg: Anthony W. Dozier, John G. Pressley, R. C. Logan.

Winyah: Francis S. Parker, Benjamin Faneuil Dunkin, Samuel Taylor Atkinson, Alex. M. Forster.

York: William Blackburn Wilson, Robert T. Allison, Samuel Rainey, A. Baxter Springs, A. I . Barron.

The members who composed the Secession Convention of the State of South Carolina were chosen from the various parishes of the several districts of the State. Since the war, however, the State has been divided into counties, and reprepresentation from parishes is no longer in vogue.