Buchanan tries compromise

• President Buchanan, in an effort to revive the Crittenden Compromise, urges its adoption, extending the Missouri Compromise line of 1820 to the California border. Buchanan’s Secretary of the Interior, Jacob Thompson of Mississippi, resigns ahead of his state’s impending secession. He is replaced by Chief Clerk Moses Kelly as Acting Secretary./1861

• Federal troops at Fort Barrancas in Pensacola, Florida, open fire on a small group of men who advance on the installation/1861