March 17, 2026

The election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency in November 1860 precipitated an unprecedented national emergency. The secession of seven southern states between December and February triggered a flurry of efforts in Washington to peacefully reunite the country, even as Secessionist forces seized U.S. arsenals and menaced federal troops occupying forts in South Carolina and Florida. Within the halls of lame-duck Congress, advocates of compromise grappled with hardliners to draft legislation and constitutional amendments that would diffuse the crisis. In this lecture, Dr. Ian Iverson will outline the difficult choices facing President-elect Lincoln, detail the political machinations that stymied the so-called “Crittenden Compromise,” and walk through the chain of events that culminated in the Confederate bombardment of Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861.

Ian T. Iverson is an associate editor at the John Dickinson Writings Project. A graduate of Princeton University, he holds a Ph.D. in American history from the University of Virginia. His doctoral dissertation won the 2023 Hay-Nicolay Dissertation Prize, awarded by the Abraham Lincoln Association and the Abraham Lincoln Institute for the best dissertation on Lincoln’s legacy. His first book, Holding the Political Center in Illinois: Conservatism and Union on the Brink of the Civil War, was published by the Kent State University Press in 2024.