| Crime/Disasters |
|
Two steamboats collide on the Mississippi River above Memphis, one sinks in minutes |
| Crime/Disasters |
|
River sloop overturns on the Hudson River and crew spend night in frozen waters |
| US/the World |
|
The French Empress returns to France from Britain after her relaxed three week private visit |
| Slavery/Abolition |
|
In Philadelphia, a speech by visiting abolitionist is postponed due to threats of violence |
| US/the World |
|
Former British Prime Minister Lord Aberdeen dies at his London home |
| Campaigns/Elections |
|
Francis Pickens is elected as the new governor of the state of South Carolina |
| Lawmaking/Litigating |
|
President Buchanan designates January 4, 1861 as a national day of fasting and prayer |
| Lawmaking/Litigating |
|
Secretary of State Lewis Cass resigns over the non-reinforcement of federal forts in South Carolina |
| Lawmaking/Litigating |
|
Philadelphia's mayor instructed to transmit recent city resolutions for conciliation to South Carolina |
| US/the World |
|
Emperor Napoleon III drops the requirement that Britons carry passports to enter and travel in France |
| Campaigns/Elections |
|
Wendell Phillips speaks against mobs in Boston and almost causes a riot |
| Lawmaking/Litigating |
|
In Columbia, South Carolina's Convention on secession opens with a morning session |
| Battles/Soldiers |
|
South Carolina governor asks President Buchanan's permission to occupy Fort Sumter with state troops |
| Lawmaking/Litigating |
|
Mississippi secession commissioner William L. Harris urges Georgia legislature to support secession |
| Education/Culture |
|
J.D. Frederick, class of 1864, appeals his expulsion from Dickinson College for drunkenness |
| Lawmaking/Litigating |
|
Commissioners from Mississippi and Alabama speak to the South Carolina Secession Convention |
| US/the World |
|
Victor Emanuel II annexes Naples, Sicily, and Umbria and the unification of Italy is almost complete |
| Education/Culture |
|
Dickinson College students punished for "smoking out" a classmate from his dormitory room |
| US/the World |
|
Britain announces the minting of new "pennies," "halfpennies," and "farthings" in bronze |
| Lawmaking/Litigating |
|
Governor Hicks refuses to call the Maryland legislature to hear the Mississippi secession commissioner |
| Lawmaking/Litigating |
|
South Carolina's Convention on secession moves to Charleston to avoid smallpox outbreak |
| Lawmaking/Litigating |
|
President Buchanan sends Caleb Cushing to ask South Carolina to postpone its Secession Convention |
| Lawmaking/Litigating |
|
Buchanan's Secretary of the Interior arrives in North Carolina to lobby that state for secession |
| Battles/Soldiers |
|
South Carolina governor orders militia to patrol Charleston Harbor between Forts Moultrie and Sumter |
| Lawmaking/Litigating |
|
Senator John J. Crittenden of Kentucky introduces his Compromise in the United States Senate |
| Lawmaking/Litigating |
|
Senator Andrew Johnson of Tennessee defends the Union on the floor of the U.S. Senate |
| Lawmaking/Litigating |
|
U.S. Senate confirms well-known Democrat lawyer Edwin M. Stanton as Attorney-General |
| Campaigns/Elections |
|
Democrat defeats incumbent Republican in election for mayor of Springfield, Massachusetts |
| Slavery/Abolition |
|
Mississippi secession commissioner tells a large Baltimore crowd that "slavery was ordained by God" |
| Crime/Disasters |
|
Railroad snowplow clearing tracks derails in Upstate New York injuring several workers |
