AN ORDINANCE to dissolve the union now existing between the
State of Arkansas and the other States united with her under the compact
entitled "The Constitution of the United States of America."
Whereas, in addition to the well-founded causes of complaint
set forth by this convention, in resolutions adopted on the 11th of March, A.D.
1861, against the sectional party now in power in Washington City, headed by
Abraham Lincoln, he has, in the face of resolutions passed by this convention
pledging the State of Arkansas to resist to the last extremity any attempt on
the part of such power to coerce any State that had seceded from the old Union,
proclaimed to the world that war should be waged against such States until they
should be compelled to submit to their rule, and large forces to accomplish this
have by this same power been called out, and are now being marshaled to carry
out this inhuman design; and to longer submit to such rule, or remain in the old
Union of the United States, would be disgraceful and ruinous to the State of
Arkansas:
Therefore we, the people of the State of Arkansas, in
convention assembled, do hereby declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared
and ordained, That the "ordinance and acceptance of compact" passed and approved
by the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas on the 18th day of October,
A.D. 1836, whereby it was by said General Assembly ordained that by virtue of
the authority vested in said General Assembly by the provisions of the ordinance
adopted by the convention of delegates assembled at Little Rock for the purpose
of forming a constitution and system of government for said State, the
propositions set forth in "An act supplementary to an act entitled `An act for
the admission of the State of Arkansas into the Union, and to provide for the
due execution of the laws of the United States within the same, and for other
purposes,'" were freely accepted, ratified, and irrevocably confirmed, articles
of compact and union between the State of Arkansas and the United States, and
all other laws and every other law and ordinance, whereby the State of Arkansas
became a member of the Federal Union, be, and the same are hereby, in all
respects and for every purpose herewith consistent, repealed, abrogated, and
fully set aside; and the union now subsisting between the State of Arkansas and
the other States, under the name of the United States of America, is hereby
forever dissolved.
And we do further hereby declare and ordain, That the
State of Arkansas hereby resumes to herself all rights and powers heretofore
delegated to the Government of the United States of America; that her citizens
are absolved from all allegiance to said Government of the United States, and
that she is in full possession and exercise of all the rights and sovereignty
which appertain to a free and independent State.
We do further ordain
and declare, That all rights acquired and vested under the Constitution of the
United States of America, or of any act or acts of Congress, or treaty, or under
any law of this State, and not incompatible with this ordinance, shall remain in
full force and effect, in nowise altered or impaired, and have the same effect
as if this ordinance had not been passed.
Adopted and passed in open
convention on the 6th day of May, A.D. 1861.