According to the ordinance, the election of Lincoln and his running mate, Hannibal Hamlin, was “a political wrong of so insulting and menacing a character as to justify the people of the state of Alabama in the adoption of prompt and decided measures for their future peace and security.” Unthinkable as it seemed to stay in a nation controlled by “a sectional party” already guilty of “dangerous infractions of the Constitution,” delegates continued to bicker over the ordinance, even after it passed in the convention. Again, the more cautious cooperationists advised the delegates to proceed slowly and suggested that the people of Alabama be allowed to vote for the ordinance of secession. Nevertheless, radical leader William Yancey maintained that there was no time to ask the people. In order to preserve Alabama’s independence, the delegates needed to act immediately.
The radicals carried the day, and with the passing of the ordinance, Alabama became a “sovereign and independent state.” At the same time, the delegates invited the other southern slave states “to meet the people of the State of Alabama” in Montgomery, in order to agree on the best way “of securing concerted and harmonious action” in organizing a new confederacy. Many citizens of Montgomery celebrated secession with music and bonfires as bells rang throughout the city. But for cooperationists, the occasion was more somber. Jeremiah Clemens, a delegate opposing immediate secession, sensed the trouble ahead. “God knows where all this is to end,” Clemens wrote to a friend. “I see very plainly the storms that are gathering, but I do not see how we are to pass through them.” Indeed, clouds were gathering, but as spring approached, delegates from throughout the South traveled to Montgomery determined to create a confederacy that would secure the independence of all slave states.