Kansas Delegation

The Peace Conference of 1861

In February 1861, following the inauguration of Lincoln and the secession of seven states from the Union, a convention of 131 politicians from the remaining states met in Washington, D. C., at the Willard Hotel. They aimed to prevent civil war, and the secession of further states, by proposing an amendment to the Constitution that would protect the existence and practice of slavery, within certain parameters, by enshrining them in constitutional law. An amendment was eventually agreed and recommended to Congress, where it was not passed.

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Kansas Delegation

This is one of the 22 delegations in the convention, accounting for 4 of 138 people who took part.

Members (4):

Name	Visualize	Details	Delegations
H. J. Adams	Visualize	None	Kansas Delegation (This negotiation)
Martin F. Conway	Visualize	(November 19, 1827 — February 15, 1882) Martin Franklin Conway, a Representative from Kansas; born at ``Bretons Hill,'' near Fallston, Harford County, Md., November 19, 1827; received a liberal schooling; moved to Baltimore, Md., in 1843; learned the art of printing and became an organizer of the National Typographical Union; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1852 and commenced practice in Baltimore; moved to Kansas in 1853 and continued the practice of law; also an agent in Kansas for the Massachusetts Abolition Society; member of the first legislative council July 2, 1854; member of the Kansas Free State convention in 1855; chief justice of the supreme court under the Topeka constitution of provisional government in 1856 and 1857; president of the Leavenworth constitutional convention of 1858; upon the admission of Kansas as a State into the Union was elected as a Republican to the Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh Congresses and served from January 29, 1861, to March 3, 1863; member of the peace convention of 1861 held in Washington, D.C., in an effort to devise means to prevent the impending war; appointed by President Johnson United States consul at Marseilles, France, on June 10, 1866, and served until April 16, 1869, when he retired from public life because of ill health; returned to Washington, D.C., where he died February 15, 1882; interment in Rock Creek Cemetery. [Source: “Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774 - Present,” available at https://bioguide.congress.gov/search/bio/C000713]	Kansas Delegation (The Road to Civil War) , Kansas Delegation (This negotiation) , Kansas Territory Delegation (The Road to Civil War)
Thomas Ewing, jr.	Visualize	None	Kansas Delegation (This negotiation)
J. C. Stone	Visualize	None	Kansas Delegation (This negotiation)