The Florida state convention on secession assembles in Tallahassee

The the sixty-nine delegates elected to the Florida state convention to consider secession assembled in the capital city of Tallahassee.  A week later the gathering had produced an ordinance of secession and passed it by a vote of sixty-two to seven.  The ordinance was signed the next day, January 11, 1861, and Florida became the third state to declare its independence from the United States. (By John Osborne)