On the 20th of December, 1860, the convention passed the ordinance of secession and Governor Pickins--just elected--announced on the same date the repeal, by the good people of South Carolina, the ordinance of May 23rd, 1788, by which South Carolina had ratified the Federal Constitution, and declared "the dissolution of the union between the state of South Carolina and the other states under the name of the United States." The governor's proclamation also announced to the world "that the state of South Carolina is, as she has a right to be, a separate, sovereign, free and independent state and, as such, has a right to levy war, conclude peace, negotiate treaties, leagues, or covenants, and to do all acts whatsoever that rightly pertain to a free and independent state. Done in the eighty-fifth year of the sovereignty and independence of South Carolina." [11] Following is the complete Ordinance passed by the Convention, as it appeared in the _Charleston Mercury Extra_ for that date, the original of which the following is a copy is in the Libby Prison Museum, of Chicago: PASSED UNANIMOUSLY AT 1:15 P. M., DECEMBER 20TH, 1860. "An ordinance to dissolve the union between the States 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 on the 23rd of May, A. D. 1788, 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acts and parts of acts of the General Assembly of this State ratifying amendments of the said Constitution are hereby repealed, and the union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of 'The United States of America' is hereby dissolved." The act of rebellion on the part of South Carolina was completed. She was the first state to take the several steps here enumerated leading up to that culmination. She was followed in the act of rebellion by ten other Southern States, as follows--I take the date on which the state conventions passed their secession ordinances to be the date on which the rebellion of the respective states was completed: _Mississippi,_ January 9th, 1861; _Florida,_ January 10th; _Alabama,_ January 11th; _Georgia,_ January 19th; _Louisiana,_ January 26th; _Texas,_ February 1st; _Virginia,_ April 17th; _Arkansas,_ May 6th; _North Carolina,_ May 20th; _Tennessee,_ June 8th, all of the same year, 1861. [12] Having proven that the Great Rebellion began with the rebellion of South Carolina, I wish now to show that the war itself actually began there.