Virginia’s Jeffersonian Peacemaker, John Tyler

He was also Governor of Virginia 1825-27, a U.S. Senator 1827-36, and served in the provisional Confederate Congress being elected to the permanent Confederate Congress, but died before he could take his seat. BT
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Sherwood Forest

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Former President John Tyler forewarned his countrymen in February 1861 of the result of a fratricidal war, though his vivid description of war and bloodshed did not inspire his Northern friends toward peaceful settlement of the issues. Born in 1792 during Washington’s presidency, Tyler exhibited a knowing perspective of the Founders’ understanding of the Union to combat Northern revolutionary doctrines. His father was also a good friend of Jefferson, a frequent guest to the Tyler household.

Bernhard Thuersam, Director
Cape Fear Historical Institute
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The War Between the States Sesquicentennial

Virginia’s Jeffersonian Peacemaker, John Tyler:

“After a few days’ rest…Tyler returned to Washington in time to be present at the opening session of the Peace Convention [on February 4]. He was anxious, he said, to win the honor of a peacemaker and a healer of the breach in the Union. He had worn all the honors of office through each grade to the highest and no wanted to crown his career with the distinction of having restored the “Union in all its plenitude, perfect as it was before the severance.”

[He] regretted that the Virginia Assembly in its call had included all the States. As the seceded States would not send delegates, the convention would be dominated by the Northern States. His plan was to have a convention of the border States – six slave and six free. To this convention two delegates each should be sent from the Northern States of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan, and the Southern States of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee , and Missouri.

These twelve States were in a better position than any others to act as arbiters of the dispute, and their recommendations would probably be accepted by both sides. If an agreement could not be reached, peaceable separation might be agreed upon. This would be preferable to a fratricidal war. For if one section should conquer the other in that war it would not gain anything.

“The conqueror will walk at every step over the smoldering ashes and beneath crumbling columns. States once proud and independent will no longer exist and the glory of the Union will have departed forever. Ruin and desolation will everywhere prevail, and the victor’s brow, instead of a wreath of glorious evergreen such as a patriot…wear[s], will be encircled with withered and faded leaves bedewed with the blood of the child and its mother and the father and the son. The picture is too horrible and revolting to be dwelt upon.”

If the recommendations of this smaller convention were not accepted by both sides, this would prove that the restoration of peace and concord was impossible. In that event the Southern States should hold a convention as a last resort. This convention should take the Constitution of the United States and incorporate into it such changes as would be necessary to safeguard the rights of the South. These guaranties, however, should not go “one iota beyond what strict justice and the security of the South require.” The Constitution so amended should be adopted by the convention and then an invitation issued to the other States to join them under the old Constitution and flag.”

(John Tyler, Champion of the Old South, Oliver Perry Chitwood, American Historical Association, 1939, pp. 439-440)