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| Lincoln addresses the Ohio legislature |
- The Confederate State Department resolves to send commissioners to Washington, Britain, France, and other parts of Europe to secure recognition for the Confederacy/1861
- Virginia assembles a convention to consider the possibility of secession./1861
- In Washington, The Electoral College of the United States meets and officially elects Abraham Lincoln the sixteenth President./1861
- US President-elect Lincoln, on his pre-Inauguration trip from Springfield to Washington, travels from Cincinnati to Columbus, state capital of Ohio. The trip is supposed to build political capital from his election victory, but he is still doing damage control from his speech in Indianapolis which angered Democrats. In Columbus, Lincoln gives a speech to Ohio's General Assembly minimizing the difficulties of the country, saying “there is nothing going wrong.” He acknowledges that he has revealed little about "the policy of the new administration," but intimating a coming shift once he is in office, he explains, "In the varying and repeatedly shifting scenes of the present, and without a precedent which could enable me to judge by the past, it has seemed fitting that before speaking upon the difficulties of the country, I should have gained a view of the whole field . . . being at liberty to modify and change the course of policy, as future events may make a change necessary." At 5:00 p.m. Lincoln receives word that the electoral votes had been counted, and he has been officially elected the sixteenth President./1861
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