Peace Conference of 1861 - Background

Background

In December 1860 the final session of the Thirty-sixth Congress met. In the House, the Committee of Thirty-Three (composed of one member from each state), led by Ohio Republican Thomas Corwin, was formed in order to reach a compromise to preserve the Union. In the Senate, former Kentucky Whig John J. Crittenden, elected as a Unionist candidate, submitted six proposed constitutional amendments that he hoped would address all the outstanding issues. Hopes were high, especially in the Border States, that the lame duck Congress could reach a successful resolution before the new Republican administration took office.

Crittenden’s proposals were debated by a specially selected Committee of Thirteen. The proposals provided for, among other things, an extension of the Missouri Compromise line dividing slave from Free states to the Pacific Ocean, bringing his efforts directly in conflict with the 1860 Republican Platform and the personal views of President-elect Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln made known his objections, and the Compromise was rejected by the committee on December 22 by a vote of 7-6. Crittenden later brought the issue to the floor of the Senate as a proposal to have his compromise made subject to a national referendum, but the Senate rejected it on January 16 by a vote of 25-23.

A modified version of the Crittenden Plan, believed to be more attractive to Republicans, was considered by an ad hoc committee of fourteen congressmen from the lower North and upper South meeting several times between December 28 and January 4. The committee was chaired again by Crittenden and included other southern Unionists such as Representatives John A. Gilmer of North Carolina, Robert H. Hatton of Tennessee, J. Morrison Harris of Maryland, and John T. Harris of Virginia. A version of their work was rejected by the House on January 7.

In the House the Committee of Thirty-Three on January 14 reported that it had reached majority agreement on a constitutional amendment to protect slavery where it existed and the immediate admission of New Mexico Territory as a slave state. This latter proposal would result in a de facto extension of the Missouri Compromise line for all existing territories below the line.

A fourth avenue towards compromise came from the state of Virginia. Former president John Tyler, a private citizen of Virginia, still very much interested in the fate of the nation, had been appointed as a special Virginia envoy to President James Buchanan urging him to maintain the status quo in regard to the seceded states. Later Tyler was an elected delegate to the Virginia convention called to consider whether or not to follow the deep South states out of the Union. Tyler thought that one final collective effort should be made to preserve the Union and in a document published on January 17, 1861, called for a convention of the six free and six slave Border States to resolve the sectional split. Governor John Letcher of Virginia had already made a similar request to the state legislature which acted by agreeing to sponsor the convention while expanding the list of attendees to all of the states. Thomas Corwin agreed to hold off any final vote on his House plan pending the final actions of the Peace Conference.