Lincoln walks two miles and holds long interview with former Sen. John Bell (Tenn.) before breakfast. N.Y. Times, 28 February 1861.

Washington, D. C. Mayor James G. Berret extends an official welcome to President-elect Lincoln, who resides at the Willard's Hotel. Mayor Berret expresses hope that Lincoln will "restore peace and harmony to our now distracted country." Lincoln acknowledges the "ill feeling that has existed and still exists between the people of the section from whence I came and the people here." He declares, "I have not now any purpose to withhold from you any of the benefits of the constitution . . . that I would not feel myself constrained to withhold from my own neighbors." New York Herald, 28 February 1861, 1:3; Reply to Mayor James G. Berret at Washington, DC, 27 February 1861, CW, 4:246-47.

Receives clerks of executive departments. Talks with Sen. Douglas (Ill.) who stays late to make impassioned plea for conciliation of South. National Intelligencer, 1 March 1861; Fletcher Pratt, History of the Civil War (New York: Pocket Books, 1956), 4.

Goes to Capitol and receives justices of Supreme Court in afternoon. N.Y. Times, 28 February 1861.

At 9 P.M. group of border statesmen, including former Sec. of Treasury James Guthrie of Kentucky and Alexander W. Doniphan of Missouri, calls to talk compromise. William E. Baringer, A House Dividing: Lincoln as President Elect (Springfield, IL: Abraham Lincoln Association, 1945), 315.