Birthdays
Alexander Sandor Asboth
Turns 50 on this date
George Dashiell Bayard
Turns 25 on this date
Jesse David Bright
Turns 48 on this date
John Mercer Brooke
Turns 34 on this date
Thomas Pleasant Dockery
Turns 27 on this date
Arnold Elzey
Turns 44 on this date
Charles Griffin
Turns 35 on this date
George Dennison Prentice
Turns 57 on this date
Events
| Lawmaking/Litigating | Buchanan's Secretary of the Interior arrives in North Carolina to lobby that state for secession | 12/18/1860 |
| Lawmaking/Litigating | Governor Hicks refuses to call the Maryland legislature to hear the Mississippi secession commissioner | 12/18/1860 |
| Lawmaking/Litigating | President Buchanan sends Caleb Cushing to ask South Carolina to postpone its Secession Convention | 12/18/1860 |
| Lawmaking/Litigating | Senator John J. Crittenden of Kentucky introduces his Compromise in the United States Senate | 12/18/1860 |
| Battles/Soldiers | South Carolina governor orders militia to patrol Charleston Harbor between Forts Moultrie and Sumter | 12/18/1860 |
| Lawmaking/Litigating | South Carolina's Convention on secession moves to Charleston to avoid smallpox outbreak | 12/18/1860 |
| Lawmaking/Litigating | The second session of the 36th Congress is sitting in Washington, DC |
12/04/1860 to 03/02/1861 |
Documents
| Letter | Abraham Lincoln to Henry J. Raymond, December 18, 1860 | 12/18/1860 |
| Newspaper | Lowell (MA) Citizen & News, “Compromise Projects,” December 18, 1860 | 12/18/1860 |