Peace Conference of 1861 The Peace Conference of 1861 was a meeting of more than 100 of the leading politicians of the antebellum United States held in Washington , D . C . , in February 1861 that was meant to prevent what ultimately became the Civil War . The success of President Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party in the national elections of 1860 led to a flurry of political activity . In much of the South , elections were held to select delegates to special conventions empowered to consider secession from the Union . In Congress , efforts were made in both the House of Representatives and the Senate to reach compromise over the issues relating to slavery that were dividing the nation . The Washington Peace Conference of 1861 was the final effort by the individual states to resolve the crisis . With the seven states of the Cotton South already committed to secession , the emphasis for peacefully preserving the Union focused on the eight slaveholding states representing the Upper and Border South , with the states of Virginia and Kentucky playing key roles . 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 . The Convention . This convention convened on February 4 , 1861 , at the Willard Hotel at the same time that the seven Deep South states that had already passed ordinances of secession were preparing to form a new government in Montgomery , Alabama . At the same time that John Tyler , selected to head the Peace Convention , was making his opening remarks in Washington , his granddaughter in Montgomery was ceremonially hoisting the flag for the convention in Montgomery . No delegates were sent by the Deep South states , or by Arkansas , Michigan , Wisconsin , Minnesota , California , and Oregon . Fourteen free states and seven slave states were represented . Among the representatives to the conference were James A . Seddon and William Cabell Rives from Virginia , David Wilmot from Pennsylvania , Reverdy Johnson from Maryland , William P . Fessenden and Lot M . Morrill from Maine , James Guthrie from Kentucky , Stephen T . Logan from Illinois , Alvan Cullom from Tennessee , and Thomas Ewing and Salmon P . Chase from Ohio . Many of the delegates came in the belief that they could be successful , but many others , from both sides of the spectrum , came simply as “ watchdogs ” for their sectional interests . Because many of the 131 delegates ( which included “ six former cabinet members , nineteen ex - governors , fourteen former senators , fifty former representatives , twelve state supreme court justices , and one former president ” ) qualified as “ senior statesmen ” , the meeting was frequently referred to derisively as the “ Old Gentleman ’ s Convention ” . On February 6 a separate committee charged with drafting a proposal for the entire convention to consider was formed . The committee consisted of one representative from each state and was headed by James Guthrie . The entire convention met for three weeks , and its final product was a proposed seven point constitutional amendment that differed little from the Crittenden Compromise . The key issue , slavery in the territories , was addressed simply by extending the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific coast with no provision for newly acquired territory . This section barely passed by a 9 - 8 vote of the states . Other features of the proposed constitutional amendment were the requirement that the acquisition of all future territories had to be approved by a majority of both the slave states and the free states , a prohibition on Congress passing any legislation that would affect the status of slavery where it currently existed , a prohibition on state legislatures from passing laws that would restrict the ability of officials to apprehend and return fugitive slaves , a permanent prohibition on the foreign slave trade , and 100 % compensation to any master whose fugitive slave was freed by illegal mob action or intimidation of officials required to administer the Fugitive Slave Act . Key sections of this amendment could only be further amended with the concurrence of all of the states . Aftermath . In failing to limit the expansion of slavery to all new territories the compromise failed to satisfy hard line Republicans . In failing to protect slavery in the territories up to the point where a territory drafted a state constitution for the approval of Congress the compromise failed to address the issue that had divided the Democratic Party into northern and southern factions in the 1860 presidential elections . The convention ’ s work was completed with only a few days left in the final session of Congress . The proposal was rejected in the Senate in a 28 to 7 vote and never came to a vote in the House . A less all encompassing constitutional amendment finally submitted by the Committee of Thirty - Three was passed by Congress , but this amendment simply provided protection for slavery where it currently existed , something that Lincoln and most members of both parties already believed was a state right protected by the existing Constitution . A bill for New Mexico statehood was tabled by a vote of 115 to 71 with opposition coming from both Southerners and Republicans . With the adjournment of Congress and the inauguration of Lincoln as president , the only avenue for compromise involved informal negotiations between Unionist southerners and representatives of the incoming Republican government ; Congress was no longer a factor . A final convention of strictly the slave states still in the Union scheduled for June 1861 never occurred because of the events at Fort Sumter . Robert H . Hatton , a Unionist from Tennessee who would later change sides , summed up the feelings of many shortly before Congress adjourned :