Peace Conference of 1861

In the House, the Committee of Thirty-Three, with one member from each state, led by Ohio Republican Thomas Corwin, was formed to reach a compromise to preserve the Union.

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.

The proposals provided for, among other things, an extension of the Missouri Compromise line dividing the territories to the Pacific Ocean, bringing his efforts directly in conflict with the 1860 Republican Platform and the personal views of President-elect Abraham Lincoln, who had made known his objections.

[3] A modified version of the Crittenden Plan, believed to be more attractive to Republicans,[further explanation needed] was considered by an ad hoc committee of 14 congressmen from the lower North and the upper South, meeting several times between December 28 and January 4.

[4] In the House, on January 14, the Committee of Thirty-Three reported that it had reached a majority agreement on a constitutional amendment to protect slavery where it existed and the immediate admission of New Mexico Territory as a slave state.

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.

In a document published on January 17, 1861, he called for a convention of the six free and six slave border states to resolve the sectional split.

[8] The conference convened on February 4, 1861, at the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C.; all seven Deep South states (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas) had already passed ordinances of secession, were preparing to form a new government in Montgomery, Alabama, and did not attend the peace conference, not believing it would accomplish anything significant.

The 131 delegates included "six former cabinet members, nineteen ex-governors, fourteen former senators, fifty former representatives, twelve state supreme court justices, and one former president", and the meeting was frequently referred to derisively as the Old Gentleman's Convention.

In not committing to permit and protect slavery in the territories, the compromise failed to address the issue that had divided the Democratic Party into Northern and Southern factions in the 1860 presidential elections.

[citation needed] Robert H. Hatton, a Unionist from Tennessee who would later change sides, summed up the feelings of many shortly before Congress adjourned: