North Carolina Secedes from Empire
                      05-20-1861
AN ORDINANCE to dissolve the union between the State of North Carolina
and the other States united with her, under the compact of government
entitled "The Constitution of the United States."
We, the people of the State of North Carolina in convention assembled, do
declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, That the
ordinance adopted by the State of North Carolina in the convention of 1789,
whereby the Constitution of the United States was ratified and adopted, and
also all acts and parts of acts of the General Assembly ratifying and adopting
amendments to the said Constitution, are hereby repealed, rescinded, and
abrogated.
We do further declare and ordain, That the union now subsisting between
the State of North Carolina and the other States, under the title of the United
States of America, is hereby dissolved, and that the State of North Carolina is
in full possession and exercise of all those rights of sovereignty which belong
and appertain to a free and independent State.
Done in convention at the city of Raleigh, this the 20th day of May, in the
year of our Lord 1861, and in the eighty-fifth year of the independence of
said State.
Source: Official Records, Ser. IV, vol. 1, pp. 335-336.

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