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Secession Fever Spreads!

The call for and elections to Secessionist conventions grew among the Deep South states as the time neared for Lincoln’s inaugural, March 4, 1861.  Following South Carolina, Mississippi (January 9, 1861), Florida (January 10, 1861), Alabama (January 11, 1861), Louisiana (January 26, 1861), and Texas (February 1, 1861) seceded.

Earlier, in December 1860, a U. S. House of Representatives Committee of Thirty-Three (one member from each state in the Union) was created to try and find areas on which a compromise could be built to save the Union.   John Crittenden of Kentucky advanced a compromise of six proposed constitutional amendments addressing all the outstanding issues.  However, on December 22, 1860 this compromise was defeated.  Presented to the Senate January 16, 1861 as a request for states’ referendum, after Mississippi, Florida and Alabama had already seceded, it was again defeated.   Between December 22, 1860 and January 12, 1861 two other compromise proposals had been considered and rejected.  On January 17, 1861, former President John Tyler now a private citizen of Virginia, published a document proposing that a final collective effort should be made to preserve the Union by calling a convention of the six (6) free and six (6) slave Border States.  This convention met on February 4, 1861 where attendees had been expanded to include all of the states.    However, none of the Deep South states sent representatives.   Because most of the attendees were “senior statesmen” this convention has been referred to as the “Old Gentleman’s Convention” and “Old Men’s Last Hurrah for the Union.”  At the end of the convention, the final proposal produced differed very little from Crittenden’s.  The work of the convention was finished only a few days before the final session of Congress ended; the Senate rejected the compromise proposal and it never came to a vote in the House.

With the adjournment of Congress, all formal efforts at compromise ended.