The South gave it a significance which elevated its authority above the Constitution, and above the laws of their own State and of the United States.

And yet, neither in legal definition nor in any ordinary use of the word, was there precedent or authority for attaching to it such impressive meaning.
An _ordinance_ of Parliament was but a temporary Act which the Commons might alter at their pleasure.

An _Act_ of Parliament could not be changed except by the consent of king, lords, and commons.

In this country, aside from the use of the word in declaring the freedom of the North-west Territory in 1787, _ordinance_ has uniformly been applied to Acts of inferior bodies, to the councils of cities, to the authorities of towns, to the directors of corporations,--rarely if ever to the Acts of legislative assemblies which represent the power of the State.
It is still more singular that, in passing the ordinance of Secession, the convention worded it so that it should seem to be the repeal of the ordinance of the 23d of May, 1788, whereby the Constitution of the United States was ratified by South Carolina, when, in simple truth, the Act of that State ratifying the Federal Constitution was never called an ordinance.

Mirabeau said that words were things; and this word was so used in the proceedings of Secession conventions as to impress the mind of the Southern people with its portentous weight and solemnity.