| November 6 - Republican Abraham Lincoln was elected the sixteenth President of the United States, receiving a popular vote of 39 percent of the electorate (1,866,452 popular votes; 180 electoral votes). Democrat Stephen A. Douglas received 1,375,157 popular votes (12 electoral votes). Southern Democrat John. C. Breckinridge received 847,953 popular votes (72 electoral votes), and John Bell , running on the Constitutional Union ticket, received 590,631 popular votes (39 electoral votes). Map of 1860 presidential election.
November 9 -President James Buchanan , almost 70, called his Cabinet together to poll their responses to secession. Most were in favor of maintaining the Union and using force to preserve it; a few southerners were in favor of allowing the Southern States to secede.
November 10 The South Carolina State legislature enacted a law which called for a convention to meet at the State capital to debate the issue of seceding from the Union. U.S. Senators James Chesnut and James H. Hammond of South Carolina resigned their seats.
November 13 The secessionist-dominated State legislature of South Carolina resolved to call 10,000 volunteers to arms to defend the State.
November 14 Gen. Winfield Scott issued orders to Maj. Robert Anderson , commander of all Union forces in Charleston, S.C., to take command of Ft. Moultrie in Charleston Harbor.
November 18 Georgia State legislature voted to raise $1,000,000 to arm the state against possible invasion by Union forces.
November 20 President Buchanan began to prepare his address to Congress, scheduled for Nov. 30, 1860. He then conferred with Gen. Scott and his Attorney General, Jeremiah Sullivan Black , who told him that all States while in Union were subject to the laws of the United States, and that while he was President, Buchanan's obligation was to collect duties and protect public property in the face of any resistance. Opposition that defied the Government only with talk, Black pointed out, could not be met with Federal troops and that the courts were the only legitimate channel through which law enforcement could act. The Attorney General emphasized that the Federal government could only repel attacks and must take a defensive posture, never waging an offensive war. The legal position of the Federal government was that the right of secession was denied, although it had little ability to prevent secession in advance unless it recognized secession. The South's position, Black pointed out, was that it had the right to secede and any attempt to prevent secession would be coercion.
November 23 - Maj. Robert Anderson, occupying Ft. Moultrie with his small Federal Garrison, reported to his Washington superiors that the position provided "a very handsome defense", but that the Union forces were so weak as to invite attack which is being "openly threatened". Anderson pointed out that unoccupied Ft. Sumter , on a shoal in the middle of Charleston Harbor, would better suit the garrison and afford it improved protection. Guns were presently being mounted inside this fort and Anderson pointed out that Ft. Sumter was "the key to the entrance of this harbor". Though he desired to avoid confrontation with secessionist forces, Anderson further stated: "Nothing, however, will be better calculated to prevent bloodshed than our being found in such an attitude that it would be madness and folly to attack us". He added to his report that the population of Charleston had almost universally opted for secession. He ominously said: "The clouds are threatening, and the storm may break upon us at any moment". He asked that reinforcements and supplies be sent immediately, a request he would make many times. Anderson's forces numbered less than 100 officers and men. Ft. Moultrie was so windswept that sand dunes piled up to its stockade and cows wandered freely in and out of the place. Castle Pinckney , located near the city, was a tiny bastion occupied by a single ordnance sergeant, his wife and children. Ft. Sumter (construction begun in 1829), which squatted in the middle of Charleston Bay, was not completely built or fortified with guns.
November 28 - More than 600 heavily armed secessionists left St. Louis,MO., and began marching toward the Missouri - Kansas border, expecting to repel a reported force of Kansas abolitionists allegedly planning to invade Missouri. Federal troops under the command of William Selby Harney were ordered to Kansas to keep the peace between Abolitionists and Secessionists.
November 30 - Mississippi State legislature drew up resolutions for secession from the Union.
December 1 - Florida State legislature met in a specially convened session to considrer the issue of secession.
December 3 - The second session of the Thirty-six Congress was convened and immediately a clamor arose concerning secession.
December 4 - President James Buchanan, in his fourth State of the Union message to Congress, took a harsh stance against abolitionism and a conciliatory position toward Southern States threatening secession. He stated: "the long-continued and intemperate interference of the Northern people with the question of slavery in the Southern States has at length produced its natural effects." Buchanan urged that the South be let alone and interference with its institutions, chiefly slavery, be stopped. He nevertheless chided the South: "...the election of anyone of our fellow-citizens to the office of President does not of itself afford just cause for dissolving the Union." Buchanan pointed out that President-elect Lincoln had made no dangerous or overt acts and that secession was not justifiable. He said: " The day of evil may never come unless we shall rashly bring it upon ourselves. Secession is neither more nor less than revolution." He warned that if South Carolina forces attempted to seize the forts at Charleston, those forts would be defended. He went on to propose a constitutional amendment which would recognize the right of slave property where it existed and that the amendment would protect that right in territories until these territories were admitted as states with or without slavery as each new state's constitution decreed. The President's proposal was met with disapproval by both sides. Buchanan had attempted to straddle the issue, opposing secession, but offering no methods to combat it. Vermont Congressman Lot Myrick Morrill responded by characterizing Buchanan as an overindulgent father ambiguously chiding rowdy sons: " Don't , but if I were you I would, and I can't help it if you do."
December 8 - President Buchanan's State of the Union message to Congress brought about a crisis in his own Cabinet. Georgian Howell Cobb , Secretary of the Treasury, formerly a strong unionist, was now convinced that Lincoln's election and the rise of the Republican Party justified secession. Cobb sent Buchanan his resignation, writing to the President: "The evil has now passed beyond control, and must be met by each and all of us, under our responsability to God and our country."
December 10 - A delegation from South Carolina met with President Buchanan, stating in a memorandum that the State would not attack the U.S. forts in Charleston Harbor before the act of secession took place and that the State hoped Federal reinforcements and supplies would not be sent to these forts. Buchanan made no promises and later conferred with advisers as to organizing the limited Federal resources for possible military action.
December 11 - Under verbal orders from the War Department, specifically Secretary of War John Buchanan Floyd , Maj. Don Carlos Buell gave his own memorandum to Maj. Anderson, commander of Ft. Moultrie, S.C. Floyd's message to Anderson via Buell was that he had not sent reinforcements to Charleston in order to avoid collision with State forces and he added his belief that South Carolina would not attack the forts. Anderson was not to take any position which State officials could construe as hostile, but he was nevertheless to keep possession of the forts and, if attacked, to defend these bastions. If attacked or threatened with attack, Anderson was authorized to place his garrison in one or as many of the forts he could best defend. Buell and Anderson toured the forts, and Buell told Anderson that Ft. Sumter was the key position, commanding the entrance to Charleston Harbor. This was the fort that would be seized, he told Anderson and that, unless Ft. Sumter was occupied, Ft. Moultrie could be easily taken. The two federal officers discussed the possibility of abandoning Ft. Moultrie and moving Anderson's command into Ft. Sumter.
December 13 - Col. R. E. Lee was relieved of command of the Dept. of Texas by Sec. of War Floyd, a secret secessionist who knew that Lee had repeatedly declared his loyalty to the Union. Lee was replaced by Bvt. Maj. Gen. David E. Twiggs , a Georgian and, like Floyd, a secret secessionist. Lee assumed command of the Second Cavalry, Tex., at Ft. Mason. At this time, Lee wrote to his son George Washington Custis Lee that he hoped "the wisdom & patriotism of the country will devise some way of saving it [the Union]... I am not pleased with the course of the 'Cotton States', as they term themselves. In addition to their selfish, dictatorial bearing, the threats they throw out against the 'Border States', as they call them, if they will not join them, argue little for the benefit. While I wish to do what is right, I am unwilling to do what is wrong, either at the bidding of the South or the North. One of their plans seems to be the renewal of the slave trade. That I am opposed to on every ground." [Through his marriage to Mary Ann Randolph Custis , Lee had inherited the large estate of Arlington, Va., but he refused to keep slaves. He had contempt for the institution of slavery which he displayed in freeing those slaves who came to him under the terms of his father-in-law's will. A strong advocate of the Constitution and the Union, Lee's most deep-rooted loyalty, however, would be to his native state of Virginia.]
December 14 - Georgia state legislature issued a call to Alabama, Florida, Mississippi and South Carolina to appoint delegates from their States to attend a convention to consider the formation of a Southern Confederacy.
December 17 - The South Carolina State Convention met in the Baptist Church, in Columbia, S.C. Convention President David Flavel Jamison stated: "It is no less than our fixed determination to throw off a Government to which we have been accustomed, and to provide new safeguards for our future security. If anything has been decided by this elections which sent us here, it is that South Carolina must dissolve her connection with the [Federal] Confederacy as speedily as possible." After citing a seemingly endless list of grievances, Jamison concluded: "Written Constitutions are worthless, unless they are written, at the same time, in the hearts, and founded on the interests of the people; and as there is no common bond of sympathy or interest between the North and the South, all efforts to preserve this Union will not only be fruitless, but fatal to the less numerous section." A resolution was drafted in the evening which stated: "That is the opinion of this Convention that the State of South Carolina should forthwith secede from the Federal Union, known as the United States of America." A second resolution ordered a committee to draft the Ordinance of Secession. A vote on the issue was then taken and universally passed with 159 votes. Awaiting the final draft of the Ordinance, the State of South Carolina, was, for all purposes, no longer a member of the Union. Due to an outbreak of smallpox, the Convention was adjourned to Charleston, S.C.
December 18 - The Crittenden Compromise. The Crittenden Compromise was perhaps the last-ditch effort to resolve the secession crisis of 1860-1861 by political negotiation. Authored by Kentucky Senator John J. Crittenden (whose two sons would become generals on opposite sides of the Civil War), it was an attempt to resolve the crisis by addressing the concerns that led the states of the Lower South to contemplate secession. As such, it gives a window into what the politicians of the day thought the cause of the crisis to be. The Compromise, as offered on December 18, 1860, consisted of a preamble, six (proposed) constitutional amendments and four (proposed) Congressional resolutions.
December 20 - A special State Convention, met in Charleston, S.C., unanimously adopted the Ordinance of Secession on the third day of its session, thus dissolving the union of South Carolina with the other states in the Union. Throughout the day, the population of Charleston wildly celebrated with marching bands, defiant speeches, the ringing of church bells and the booming of cannon. Public officials appeared and urged on the celebrants. The formal signing of the Ordinance took place in the evening. South Carolina Ordinance of Secession.
December 23 - In a three-day session (Dec. 22-24, 1860), the South Carolina Convention named three commissioners to deal with U.S. authorities regarding Federal property in the State. Representatives also passed a resolution stating that Ft. Sumter, Ft. Moultrie, Castle Pinckney and the Charleston Arsenal "be subject to the authority and control" of South Carolina.
December 24 - In Alabama, in a statewide election, citizens selected representatives to attend a State Convention to deal with the issue of secession. To support the Convention, the legislature was ordered convened on Jan 14, 1861. In South Carolina, the State Convention called for the establishment of a Southern Confederacy of slaveholding states so that these states could maintain their independence and manage their own destinies. A 'Declaration of Immediate Causes' for secession was issued, one that pointed out that the U.S. government, as declared in its original Constitution, was to be an equal Union and that states belonging to it were guaranteed separate control over all state institutions, including slavery. To this, South Carolina Governor Francis W. Pickens added his own proclamation which announced that South Carolina was separate, independent, sovereign and free.
In Springfield, Ill., after meeting with Edward Dickinson Baker and David Wilmot of Pennsylvania, Lincoln heard the rumor that Charleston, S.C., forts were to be surrendered. He stated that, if this report were true, he would publicly announce that they would be retaken, believing this would be "a rallying cry" for Union men.
December 26 - Maj. Robert Anderson, Commander of U.S. forces in Charleston Harbor, withdrew his garrison from Ft. Moultrie, an untenable harbor base, to the more secure island bastion of Ft. Sumter. This Anderson accomplished in a secret night move. After spiking the guns and destroying their carriages at Ft. Moultrie, he and his men rowed to the rocky shoal on which Ft. Sumter sat in the middle of Charleston Harbor. Anderson stated that his move had been prompted by alarming reports that warned of an attack by South Carolina militia against Ft. Moultrie. In that event, the Federal commander stated: "I was certain that if attacked my men must have been sacrificed and the harbor lost...The step which I have taken was, in my opinion, necessary to prevent the effusion of blood." Anderson ordered additional gun mountings installed at Ft. Sumter and his men worked to exhaustion to complete the defenses. Response to the secret move by Southern officials was one of rage. They interpreted the shifting of the Federal forces to Ft. Sumter as an overt threat.
In Washington, Secretary of War Floyd was told of the move of the Federal garrison in Charleston and appeared stunned, saying that Anderson had acted against his orders. The South Carolina commissioners arrived in the capital to discuss the evacuation of the Federal forts in Charleston Harbor.
December 28 - South Carolina demanded that President Buchanan removes U.S. troops from Charleston Harbor and delivers all federal installations in South Carolina to the state.
December 30 - South Carolina state troops seized the U.S. arsenal at Charleston.
December 31 - President Buchanan refused the South Carolina demand to remove troops and vacate installations.
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