Civil War Day-by-Day

April 4, 1861

• Legislature of Kentucky ratified the amendment¹ to the Federal Constitution passed by Congress.²
• Virginia State Convention refused, by a vote 89 to 45, to submit a secession ordinance to the people. ²

1. A proposed 13th Amendment to the Constitution that was never ratified, the Corwin Amendment,  which would shield “domestic institutions” of the states from the federal constitutional amendment process and from abolition or interference by Congress. Although it does not explicitly use the word slavery, it was designed specifically to protect slavery from federal power.
2. A Chronological History of the Civil War in America by Richard Swainson Fisher, New York, Johnson and Ward, 1863