Arkansas Ordinance of Secession
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a member of the Federal Union, be, and the same are hereby, in all respects and for every purpose herewith consistent, repealed,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.
