Kentucky
Whereas, the Federal Constitution, which created the Government of the United
States, was declared by the framers thereof to be the supreme law of the land,
and was intended to limit and did expressly limit the powers of said Government
to certain general specified purposes, and did expressly reserve to the States
and people all other powers whatever, and the President and Congress have
treated this supreme law of the Union with contempt and usurped to themselves
the power to interfere with the rights and liberties of the States and the
people against the expressed provisions of the Constitution, and have thus
substituted for the highest forms of national liberty and constitutional
government a central despotism founded upon the ignorant prejudices of the
masses of Northern society, and instead of giving protection with the
Constitution to the people of fifteen States of this Union have turned loose
upon them the unrestrained and raging passions of mobs and fanatics, and because
we now seek to hold our liberties, our property, our homes, and our families
under the protection of the reserved powers of the States, have blockaded our
ports, invaded our soil, and waged war upon our people for the purpose of
subjugating us to their will; and
Whereas, our honor and our duty to posterity demand that we shall not
relinquish our own liberty and shall not abandon the right of our descendants
and the world to the inestimable blessings of constitutional government:
Therefore,
Be it ordained, That we do hereby forever sever our connection with the
Government of the United States, and in the name of the people we do hereby
declare Kentucky to be a free and independent State, clothed with all power to
fix her own destiny and to secure her own rights and liberties.
And whereas, the majority of the Legislature of Kentucky have violated their
most solemn pledges made before the election, and deceived and betrayed the
people; have abandoned the position of neutrality assumed by themselves and the
people, and invited into the State the organized armies of Lincoln; have
abdicated the Government in favor of a military despotism which they have placed
around themselves, but cannot control, and have abandoned the duty of shielding
the citizen with their protection; have thrown upon our people and the State the
horrors and ravages of war, instead of attempting to preserve the peace, and
have voted men and money for the war waged by the North for the destruction of
our constitutional rights; have violated the expressed words of the constitution
by borrowing five millions of money for the support of the war without a vote of
the people; have permitted the arrest and imprisonment of our citizens, and
transferred the constitutional prerogatives of the Executive to a military
commission of partisans; have seen the writ of habeus corpus suspended without
an effort for its preservation, and permitted our people to be driven in exile
from their homes; have subjected our property to confiscation and our persons to
confinement in the penitentiary as felons, because we may choose to take part in
a cause for civil liberty and constitutional government against a sectional
majority waging war against the people and institutions of fifteen independent
States of the old Federal Union, and have done all these things deliberately
against the warnings and vetoes of the Governor and the solemn remonstrances of
the minority in the Senate and House of Representatives: Therefore,
Be it further ordained, That the unconstitutional edicts of a factious
majority of a Legislature thus false to their pledges, their honor, and their
interests are not law, and that such a government is unworthy of the support of
a brave and free people, and that we do therefore declare that the people are
thereby absolved from all allegiance to said government, and that they have a
right to establish any government which to them may seem best adapted to the
preservation of their rights and liberties.
[adopted 20 Nov 1861, by a "Convention of the People of Kentucky"]
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Mississippi
AN ORDINANCE to dissolve the union between the State of Mississippi and other
States united with her under the compact entitled "The Constitution of the
United States of America."
The people of the State of Mississippi, in convention assembled, do ordain
and declare, and it is hereby ordained and declared, as follows, to wit:
Section 1. That all the laws and ordinances by which the said State of
Mississippi became a member of the Federal Union of the United States of America
be, and the same are hereby, repealed, and that all obligations on the part of
the said State or the people thereof to observe the same be withdrawn, and that
the said State doth hereby resume all the rights, functions, and powers which by
any of said laws or ordinances were conveyed to the Government of the said
United States, and is absolved from all the obligations, restraints, and duties
incurred to the said Federal Union, and shall from henceforth be a free,
sovereign, and independent State.
Sec. 2. That so much of the first section of the seventh article of the
constitution of this State as requires members of the Legislature and all
officers, executive and judicial, to take an oath or affirmation to support the
Constitution of the United States be, and the same is hereby, abrogated and
annulled.
Sec. 3. That all rights acquired and vested under the Constitution of the
United States, or under any act of Congress passed, or treaty made, in pursuance
thereof, or under any law of this State, and not incompatible with this
ordinance, shall remain in force and have the same effect as if this ordinance
had not been passed.
Sec. 4. That the people of the State of Mississippi hereby consent to form a
federal union with such of the States as may have seceded or may secede from the
Union of the United States of America, upon the basis of the present
Constitution of the said United States, except such parts thereof as embrace
other portions than such seceding States.
Thus ordained and declared in convention the 9th day of January, in the year of our Lord 1861.
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Virginia
AN ORDINANCE to repeal the ratification of the Constitution of the United
States of America by the State of Virginia, and to resume all the rights and
powers granted under said Constitution.
The people of Virginia in their ratification of the Constitution of the
United States of America, adopted by them in convention on the twenty-fifth day
of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight,
having declared that the powers granted under said Constitution were derived
from the people of the United States and might be resumed whensoever the same
should be perverted to their injury and oppression, and the Federal Government
having perverted said powers not only to the injury of the people of Virginia,
but to the oppression of the Southern slave-holding States:
Now, therefore, we, the people of Virginia, do declare and ordain, That the
ordinance adopted by the people of this State in convention on the twenty-fifth
day of June, 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 all acts of the General Assembly of this State ratifying and
adopting amendments to said Constitution, are hereby repealed and abrogated;
that the union between the State of Virginia and the other States under the
Constitution aforesaid is hereby dissolved, and that the State of Virginia is in
the full possession and exercise of all the rights of sovereignty which belong
and appertain to a free and independent State.
And they do further declare, That said Constitution of the United States of
America is no longer binding on any of the citizens of this State.
This ordinance shall take effect and be an act of this day, when ratified by
a majority of the voter of the people of this State cast at a poll to be taken
thereon on the fourth Thursday in May next, in pursuance of a schedule hereafter
to be enacted.
Adopted by the convention of Virginia April 17, 1861
[ratified by a vote of 132,201 to 37,451 on 23 May 1861]
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