Georgia
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History of Georgia
Georgia, the thirteenth British colony in America, was founded by James Oglethorpe and entered the Union on 2 January 1788. To her honor, she was the first State to incorporate in her organic constitution a prohibition against the importation of slaves. At least twice, Georgia derided the overtures of the federal Government. The State refused to comply with demands against her own legislation, stating that State sovereignty would tolerate no interference. At last, when the government grew to unmanageable insolence and would no longer respect the authority of the States which had created it, Georgia seceded on 20 January 1861 and cast her lot with the Confederate States of America. One of her State secession flags bore the motto - Georgia: Equality in, or Independence out of the Union.
"You may talk about the Union,
And the land beyond the sea;
But the Empire State of Georgia
Is good enough for me."
--M. B. Wharton
Ordinance of Secession
We, the people of the State of Georgia, in Convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, That the ordinance adopted by the people of the State of Georgia in Convention, on the second day of January, in the year of our Lord seventeen hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was assented to, ratified and adopted; and also all Acts and parts of Acts of the General Assembly of this State ratifying and adopting amendments to said Constitution, are hereby repealed, rescinded and abrogated.
We do further declare and ordain, That the Union now subsisting between the State of Georgia and other States under the name of the "United States of America," is hereby dissolved, and that the State of Georgia is in full possession and exercise of all those rights of sovereignty which belong and appertain to a free and independent State.
Passed January 19, 1861.
Statement of Protest
We, the undersigned, Delegates to the Convention of the State of Georgia, now in Session, whilst we most solemnly Protest against the action of the majority in adopting an Ordinance for the immediate and separate Secession of this State, and would have preferred the policy of co-operation with our southern sister States, - yet, as good citizens, we yield to the will of a majority of her people, as expressed by their Representatives; and we hereby pledge 'our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor' to the defence of Georgia, if necessary, against hostile invasion from any source whatever.
James P. Simmons - Gwinnett County
Thomas M McRae - Gwinnett County
S.H. Lattimer - Montgomery County
Davis Welchel - Montgomery County
P.M. Byrd - Hall County
James Simmons - Pickens County
The State of Georgia Was Annihilated in 1868
The following is an excerpt from Georgia v. Stanton, a case brought before the U.S. Supreme Court in response to the Reconstruction Acts of 1867, which disfranchised most of the White population of Georgia and enfranchised the Negro inhabitants of the State in their place:
A State is a complete body of free persons united together for their common benefit, to enjoy peaceably what is their own, and to do justice to others. It is an artificial person. It has its affairs and its interests. It has its rules. It has its rights. A republican State, in every political, legal, constitutional, and juridical sense, as well under the law of nations, as the laws and usages of the mother country, is composed of those persons who, according to its existing constitution or fundamental law, are the constituent body. All other persons within its territory, or socially belonging to its people, as a human society, are subject to its laws, and may justly claim its protection; but they are not, in contemplation of law, any portion of the body politic known and recognized as the State. On principle it must be quite clear that the body politic is composed of those who by the fundamental law are the source of all political power, or official or governmental authority.... The State has a right to maintain its constitution or political association. And it is its duty to do what may be necessary to preserve that association. And no external power has a right to interfere with or disturb it....
The change proposed by the two acts of Congress in question is fundamental and vital. The acts seize upon a large portion — whites — of the constituent body and exclude them from acting as members of the State. It violently thrusts into the constituent body, as members thereof, a multitude of individuals — negroes — not entitled by the fundamental law of Georgia to exercise political powers. The State is to be Africanized. This will work a virtual extinction of the existing body politic, and the creation of a new, distinct, and independent body politic, to take its place and enjoy its rights and property. Such new State would be formed, not by the free will or consent of Georgia or her people, nor by the assent or acquiescence of her existing government or magistracy, but by external force. Instead of keeping the guaranty against a forcible overthrow of its government by foreign invaders or domestic insurgents, this is destroying that very government by force....
Independently of this principle, the forced acquiescence of the people, under the pressure of military power, would soon work a virtual extinction of the existing political society. Each aspect of the case shows that the impending evil will produce consequences fatal to the continuance of the present State, and, consequently, that the injury would be irreparable (73 U.S. 50, 65-67).
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