Arkansas Secedes from US Empire
                     05-06-1861
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and for every purpose herewith consistent, repealed, abrogated, and fully set aside; and the union now subsisting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.
Source: Official Records, Ser. IV, vol. 1, pp. 287-88.

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