James Chesnut, Jr. of South Carolina tendered his resignation from the Senate just four days after the presidential election becoming the first Southern senator to do so. He returned to Charleston where he participated in the secession convention in December 1860. He later served on the committee that drafted the Confederate constitution.  His fellow South Carolina senator, James Henry Hammond, followed the next day. (By John Osborne)  

The widespread suspension of trade between the North and South following the election of Abraham Lincoln quickly caused a banking crisis.  Banks in New York and Boston were able to act in concert to weather the storm but Philadelphia banks were forced to suspend specie payments as hard currency flowed southward.  Reports, however, noted that this action was taken calmly in the city and was seen as a cautious, unavoidable, and temporary measure. (By John Osborne)  

Following the election of Abraham Lincoln, financial excitement grew as Southerners repudiated their debts and cancelled orders.  New York banks were powerful enough to act in concert to keep business going but smaller centers were not. In Richmond, on this day, the powerful Farmer's Bank of Virginia suspended payments in specie. The next day almost all other banks in the state followed. (By John Osborne)

With the excitement following the election of Abraham Lincoln, hard currency had been flowing out of the banks as Southerners repudiated their debts and cancelled orders from Northern manufacturers.  New York was particularly hard hit as it was financial center for the cotton trade. The New York banks lost an estimated $3.5 million in metal currency in ten days.  These banks were, however, powerful enough to act in concert to maintain stability in New York banking. Smaller centers were less able to do this and had to suspend payments in specie. (By John Osborne)

In Cumberland County in central Pennsylvania, Abraham Lincoln took 3,593 of the 6973 ballots cast in the presidential election. A Democratic fusion ticket took 3,207.  In the county town of Carlisle, Lincoln beat the Democrats by only six votes, 425 to 419. This was a very strong showing in a traditionally strong Democratic county and pointed towards Lincoln's eventual 70,000 votes victory in the Keystone State. (By John Osborne)   

Mississippi Governor John J. Pettus had recently named Judge Alexander Hamilton Handy a secession commissioner to his birth state of Maryland.  When he was refused a hearing before the state legislature, Handy addressed 1500 people at the Maryland Institute Hall in Baltimore the following evening.  He said that the nation was in a "state of revolution" over slavery and that "slavery was ordained by God and sanctioned by humanity."  (By John Osborne) 

Mississippi Governor John J. Pettus had recently named Judge Alexander Hamilton Handy a secession commissioner to his birth state of Maryland.  Handy met Governor Thomas Hicks in Annapolis and requested meeting a session of the Maryland legislature to explain Mississippi's position in the current crisis.  Hicks refused his request out of hand.  Handy spoke instead to a meeting in Baltimore the next evening. (By John Osborne) 

Jacob Thompson, sitting Secretary of the Interior in the Buchanan Cabinet, had been recently named as a secession commissioner to North Carolina by Mississippi governor John J. Pettus.  Despite his federal status, he took the appointment and traveled to Raleigh, North Carolina to lobby for that state's secession.  Thompson did not resign from the cabinet until January 8, 1861.  He later became Inspector General of the Confederate States Army. (By John Osborne)