Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 27.djvu/79

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and tin ( '.moral Assembly, representing the wishes of the people of tin- Commonwealth, is desirous of employing every reasonable means to avert so dire a calamity"; and then proceeds to call upon the States to send commissioners to what has been known in history as the " Peace Congrt -^." To this Congress Virginia sent as her rep- resentatives ex- President John Tyler, William C. Rives, John W. Brockenbrough, George W. Summers and James A. Seddon.

The Peace Congress accordingly met in Washington in February, 1 86 r, where representatives from twenty-three States assembled and took part in the deliberations, though there were, of course, no representatives present from the seven Commonwealths who had already formed the Southern Confederacy. John Tyler, of Virginia, was elected its president, and his speech accepting the position thrilled with sentiments of patriotism and devotion to the country. He declared:

"The voice of Virginia has invited her co-States to meet her in council. In the initiation of this government that same voice was heard and complied with, and the result seventy odd years has fully attested the wisdom of the decisions then adopted. Is the urgency of her call now less great than it was then ? Our Godlike fathers created! We have to preserve. They have built up through their wisdom and patriotism monuments which have eternized their name. You have before you, gentlemen, a task equally grand, equally sublime, quite as full of glory and of immortality: you have to snatch from ruin a grand and glorious confederation; to preserve the government, and to renew and invigorate the Constitution. If you reach the height of this great occasion, your children's children will rise up and call you blessed."

WITHOUT AVAIL.

The deliberations of the Peace Congress availed nothing to stem the tide of disunion, which seemed to flow in from both sections. It is almost pathetic to read the speeches of some of the participants in that great conference, as evidencing their yearnings for reconcilia- tion between the sections and to avert the threatened calamity of civil war. Over against this sentiment was a counterspirit which foreboded no good for the peace of the country. As an example of the first, let me quote a few sentences from a speech of William C. Rives, one of the Virginia delegates:

" Mr. President, the position of Virginia must be understood and appreciated. She is just now the neutral ground between two em-