aw to prevent slaves from
being taken from the States to the Territories; that no Territory
shall be acquired by the United States, except by discovery and
for naval stations, without the consent of a majority of the Senators
from the slave and also from the free States; that Congress shall
have no power to abolish slavery in any State, nor in the District
of Columbia without the consent of Maryland; nor to prohibit
Congressmen from taking their slaves to and from said District;
nor the power to prohibit the free transportation of slaves from
one slave State or Territory to another; that bringing slaves into
the District of Columbia for sale, or to be placed in depot for
transfer and sale at other places, is prohibited; that the clauses
in the Constitution and its amendments relating to slavery shall
never be abolished or amended without the consent of all the States;
and that Congress shall provide by law for paying owners for escaped
slaves where officers, whose duty it was to arrest them, were
prevented from arresting them or returning them to their owners
after being arrested.

"The Peace Conference" was composed of 133 members, among whom were
some of the most eminent men of the country, though generally,
however, only conservatives from each section were selected as
members. Its remarkable recommendations were made with considerable
unanimity, voting in the conference being by States, the Continental
method.

Wm. Pitt Fessenden and Lot M. Morrill of Maine, Geo. S. Boutwell
of Massachusetts, David Dudley Field and Erastus Corning of New
York, Frederick T. Frelinghuysen of New Jersey, David Wilmot of
Pennsylvania, Reverdy Johnson of Maryland, John Tyler, Wm. C. Rives,
and John A. Seddon of Virginia, Wm. O. Butler, James B. Clay, James
Guthrie, and Charles A. Wickcliffe of Kentucky, C. P. Wolcott,
Salmon P. Chase, John C. Wright, Wm. S. Groesback, Franklin T.
Backus, Reuben Hitchcock, Thomas Ewing (Sen.), and Valentine B.
Horton of Ohio, Caleb B. Smith and Godlove S. Orth of Indiana, John
M. Palmer and Burton C. Cook of Illinois, and James Harlan and
James W. Grimes of Iowa were of the number. Many of them were
then, or afterwards, celebrated as statesmen; and some of them
subsequently held high rank as soldiers.

March 2, 1861, the "Peace Conference" propositions were offered
twice to the Senate, and each time overwhelmingly defeated, as they
had been, on the day preceding, by the House.(118)

There were ma