To the call of Virginia, twenty states responded; and their representatives met on the 4th day of February, 1861, in the City of Washington. It was a notable gathering. Among the prominent members were William P. Fessenden and Lot M. Morrill, of Maine; George S. Boutwell and Charles Allen, of Massachusetts; David Dudley Field, Erastus Corning, William E. Dodge and General John E. Wool, of New York; Robert F. Stockton and Frederick T. Frelinghuysen, of New Jersey; David Wilmot and A. W. Loomis of Pennsylvania; Reverdy Johnson, of Maryland; Thomas Ruffin and J. M. Morehead, of North Carolina; James Guthrie and Charles A. Wicliffe, of Kentucky; Salmon P. Chase, William S. Groesbeck and Thomas Ewing, of Ohio; Caleb B. Smith, of Indiana, and James Harlan, of Iowa.

Mr. Rhodes says: "The historical significance of the Peace Convention consists in the evidence it affords of the attachment of the Border Slave States to the Union."[[358]]

VIEWS OF TYLER AND RIVES

Some evidence of the spirit which animated the people of Virginia may be gathered from the speeches of her delegates. John Tyler, on assuming the Presidency of the body, spoke in part as follows:

"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 resulting seventy-odd years have fully attested the wisdom of the decision then adopted. Is the urgency of her call less great than it was then? Our God-like fathers created! We have to preserve. They have built up through their wisdom and patriotism monuments which have eternized their names. You have before you, gentlemen, a task equally grand, equally sublime, quite as full of glory and 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."[[359]]

In the course of one of his speeches, Ex-Senator Rives said:

"Mr. President, the position of Virginia must be understood and appreciated. She is just now the neutral ground between two embattled legions—between two angry, excited and hostile portions of the Union. Something must be done to save the country, to allay these apprehensions, to restore a broken confidence. Virginia steps in to arrest the progress of the country on its way to ruin.... Sir, I have had some experience in revolutions in another hemisphere, in revolutions produced by the same causes that are now operating among us.... I have seen the pavements of Paris covered and the gutters running with fraternal blood. God forbid I should see this horrid picture repeated in my own country—and yet it will be, sir! if we listen to the counsel urged here."[[360]]

George W. Summers, another of the Virginia delegates, opened his speech to the conference in these words:

"Mr. President! my heart is full! I cannot approach the great issues with which we are dealing, with becoming coolness and deliberation! Sir! I love this Union. The man does not live who entertains a higher respect for this government than I do. I know its history—I know how it was established. There is not an incident in its history that is not precious to me. I do not wish to survive its dissolution."[[361]]

OPPOSITION TO PEACE CONFERENCE