CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, REPORTS, AND RETURNS OF THE CONFEDERATE AUTHORITIES, DECEMBER 20, 1860-JUNE 30, 1862. *

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 twenty-third day, 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acts and parts of acts of the General Assembly of this State ratifying amendments of the said Constitution, are hereby repealed; and that the union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of the "United States of America," is hereby dissolved.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 twentieth day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty.

JANUARY 2, 1861.

His Excellency A. B. MOORE:

SIR: In obedience to your instructions I repaired to the seat of government of the State of Louisiana to confer with the Governor of that State and with the legislative department on the grave and important state of our political relations with the Federal Government, and the duty of the slave-holding States in the matter of their rights and honor, so menacingly involved in matters connected with the institution of African slavery. Owing to the fact that the Legislature was in session only three days, and other unavoidable causes, I did not arrive at Baton Rouge until After the Legislature had adjourned. But I met many members of the legislative corps, and communicated with them and with His Excellency Governor T. O. Moore on the purposes of my embassy, and have the pleasure to report that the legislative ming appeared fully alive to the importance and the absolute necessity of the action of the Southern States in resistance of that settled purpose of aggression on our constitutional and inherent natural rights by the majority of the people of the non-slave-holding States of the Federal Union, which purpose and intention has culminated in

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*The letters-sent books of the C. S. War Department from May 23 to September 12, 1862, were never received by the U. S. authorities. This will explain the want of continuity in the letters from that office covering the period mentioned.

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1 R R-SERIES IV, VOL I