Lincoln inaugurated; Stars & Bars adopted

First National Confederate Flag (7 star)

• The Confederacy adopts its first flag, the Stars and Bars, designed by O.R. Smith of Louisburg, NC./1861
• President Davis appoints Stephen R. Mallory Secretary of the Navy/1861 
• The U.S. Senate considers the Peace Convention resolutions in the waning moments of its session but rejects them decisively, 28-7./1861 

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  US Capitol on Lincoln's Inauguration

  It is the big day in Washington. Abraham Lincoln is inaugurated the sixteenth President of the United States with 30,000 in attendance. After a dreary morning with sharp, chilly winds out of the northwest and some rain, a bright sun comes out by noon on this cold day. Outgoing President James Buchanan accompanies Lincoln on the traditional carriage ride up Pennsylvania Avenue to Capitol Hill. A flag-draped platform constructed at the east portico of the Capitol serves the Inauguration ceremony. With threats against the President’s life, security is tight with guards and troops everywhere, and the Capitol itself has been carefully searched. 

In his inaugural address, Lincoln emphasizes that he is not opposed to slavery where it is established, assuming that slavery was the only issue that brought states to the point of secession. He says the seceded states are in error, since the Union is perpetual, ignoring the meaning and raison d’être for the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution.

Lincoln and Buchanan pass Capitol

By taking the stance that secession is an act against the Federal government and therefore "insurrectionary or revolutionary," Lincoln sets a bullying tone at the beginning of his Administration. He vows to uphold and reassemble the Union, thinly veiling his belligerent intent to coerce states by military force, thus violating the very Constitution he only minutes earlier took an oath to uphold.

Then with powerful and persuasive rhetoric, Lincoln spins the national crisis caused by his own election by laying blame for his willful intimidation at the feet of the Southern states threatening, "in your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war.”/1861

Lincoln gives his Inauguration Address

• The new President Lincoln does not have time to celebrate his new job. This morning in the midst of inaugural festivities, Lincoln finds at his office a report from Major Robert Anderson at Fort Sumter, written on February 28, which has reached Washington today. Anderson reports that his examination of provisions has found that the garrison has four to six weeks of supplies remaining. Anticipating reinforcements, Anderson says that he and his staff agree that a considerable land and naval force would be required to relieve Fort Sumter – an estimated "twenty thousand good and well-disciplined men."/1861