Free Republic

A century and a half after the opening shots of the U.S. Civil War, nearly four in 10 Southerners say they still sympathize with the Confederacy.

<p>ON JAN. 16, 1861, delegates to a Georgia state convention gathered to consider whether to secede from the United States. Three days later, voting 208-89, the convention adopted an “Ordinance of Secession,’’ which “repealed, rescinded, and abrogated’’ Georgia’s ratification of the federal Constitution in 1788.</p>