Diary of Private William S. White, April 17, 1861

VIRGINIA HAS SECEDED FROM THE UNION!

Yes, to-day the Convention passed the Ordinance of Secession, though some of our best men signed it under protest, and some did not sign it at all. The excitement has quietly died away; other and weightier matters than parading the streets and burning tar-barrels now occupy the Southern people. Stern preparations for meeting the impending struggle are seen on every hand. Recruits are rapidly filling up our volunteer organizations, and soon old Virginia will be in condition to enter the arena of war. To-day I re-connected myself with the Richmond Howitzers, commanded by Captain George W. Randolph, having resigned my membership in that command soon after the "John Brown raid." Its Lieutenants are J. C. Shields, of the Richmond Whig, and John Thompson Brown, a prominent lawyer of this city. Captain Randolph bore an important part in the Convention, and always supported the Southern cause, though never an extremist in his views. Our numbers are rapidly increasing, and we expect soon to form a battalion with Captain Randolph as Major.

SOURCE: William S. White, A Diary of the War; or What I Saw of It, p. 91

Virginia's Ordinance of Secession

AN ORDINANCE to repeal the ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America by the State of Virginia, and to resume all the rights and powers granted under said Constitution.

The people of Virginia in their ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America, adopted by them in convention on the twenty-fifth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, having declared that the powers granted under said Constitution were derived from the people of the United States and might be resumed whensoever the same should be perverted to their injury and oppression, and the Federal Government having perverted said powers not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern slave-holding States:

Now, therefore, we, the people of Virginia, do declare and ordain, That the ordinance adopted by the people of this State in convention on the twenty-fifth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified, and all acts of the General Assembly of this State ratifying and adopting amendments to said Constitution, are hereby repealed and abrogated; that the union between the State of Virginia and the other States under the Constitution aforesaid is hereby dissolved, and that the State of Virginia is in the full possession and exercise of all the rights of sovereignty which belong and appertain to a free and independent State.

And they do further declare, That said Constitution of the United States of America is no longer binding on any of the citizens of this State.

This ordinance shall take effect and be an act, of this day, when ratified by a majority of the votes of the people of this State cast at a poll to be taken thereon on the fourth Thursday in May next, in pursuance of a schedule hereafter to be enacted.

Adopted by the convention of Virginia April 17, 1861.

JOHN JANNEY,
President.

JOHN L. EUBANK,
Secretary.

SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the official records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series IV – Volume I, p. 223