Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 40.djvu/31

Rh few days after the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln at Washington they formally notified his Secretary of State, Mr. Seward, that "the President, Congress and people of the Confederate States earnestly desire a peaceful solution" of pending questions between the two governments. The full history of these negotiations makes mighty interesting reading. But it is too long a story to be rehearsed in detail here. (46) Suffice it to say that it was through no fault of these commissioners, or of the people and government they represented, that their mission of peace and good will to their late allies of the North came to nought.

South Carolina, shortly after her secession in December, 1860, had taken like steps looking to peace, by sending a commission to negotiate with Buchanan's administration relative to former United States property within her limits. (47)

Yet another effort for peace was made from a Southern official quarter in those portentous, ominous months following the sectional victory at the polls in November, 1860. The provisional Confederate constitution mentioned above was framed and adopted by what were called the seven Cotton States. The border Southern States were yet within the old union, hoping against hope for continued union, peace and justice. Among these border States was Virginia, the oldest, the most powerful of them all. By unanimous vote of her Legislature all the States of the union were invited to send commissioners to a conference, to devise some plan for preserving harmony and constitutional union. (48)

This conference met in Washington, February 4, 1861, the very day on which the Congress of the seceded Cotton States assembled in Montgomery. It adjourned February 27. Significantly enough, in view of our present argument, this conference at Washington was called the Peace Congress. The demands or suggestions of the South in this Peace Congress were only that constitutional obligations should be observed by all parties; nay, that certain concessions to the North would be agreed to, by means of constitutional amendment, if only the constitution, as thus amended, might be obeyed. This did not suit the commissioners from the Northern States, as was bluntly stated by one