With an amendment to the constitutions of their States they had all been familiar.

In the enactment of their laws thousands had participated.

But no one of them had ever before seen or heard or dreamed of any thing of such momentous and decisive character as an Ordinance.

Even to this day, when disunion, secession, rebellion have all been destroyed by the shock of arms, and new institutions have been built over their common grave, the word "ordinance" has, in the minds of many people both in the North and in the South, a sound which represents the very majesty of popular power.
If the other Southern States would have been left to their own counsels, South Carolina would have stood alone, and her Secession of 1860 would have proved as abortive as her Nullification of 1832.
The Disunion movement in the remaining States of the South originated in Washington.

Finding that the Cotton States, especially those bordering on the Gulf of Mexico, were moving too slowly, the senators from Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi, and Florida held a meeting in Washington on the 5th of January, 1861.