The Hampton Roads Conference was a peace conference held between the United States and representatives of the unrecognized breakaway Confederate States on February 3, 1865, aboard the steamboat River Queen in Hampton Roads, Virginia, to discuss terms to end the American Civil War. President Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of State William H. Seward, representing the Union, met with three commissioners from the Confederacy: Vice President Alexander H. Stephens, Senator Robert M. T. Hunter, and Assistant Secretary of War John A. Campbell.
The representatives discussed a possible alliance against France, the possible terms of surrender, the question of whether slavery might persist after the war, and the question of whether the South would be compensated for property lost through emancipation. Lincoln and Seward reportedly offered some possibilities for compromise on the issue of slavery. The only concrete agreement reached was regarding prisoner-of-war exchanges.
The Confederate commissioners immediately returned to Richmond at the conclusion of the conference. Confederate President Jefferson Davis announced that the North would not compromise. Lincoln drafted an amnesty agreement based on terms discussed at the Conference, but met with opposition from his Cabinet. John Campbell continued to advocate for a peace agreement and met again with Lincoln after the fall of Richmond on April 2.
Overtures for peace In 1864, pressure mounted for both sides to seek a peace settlement to end the long and devastating Civil War.Johnson, "Lincoln's Solution to the Problem of Peace Terms" (1968), p. 576. Several people had sought to broker a North–South peace treaty in 1864. Francis Preston Blair, a personal friend of both Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, had unsuccessfully encouraged Lincoln to make a diplomatic visit to Richmond. Blair had advocated to Lincoln that the war could be brought to a close by having the two opposing sections of the nation stand down in their conflict, and reunite on grounds of the Monroe Doctrine in attacking the French-installed Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico.Harris (2000). Lincoln asked Blair to wait until Savannah had been captured.Donald, Lincoln (1995), p. 556.
South
Davis was pressed for options as the Confederacy faced collapse and defeat. Peace movements in the South had been active since the beginning of the war and intensified in 1864 in the face of widespread shortages of food, medicine, and other goods.Sanders, "Jefferson Davis and the Hampton Roads Peace Conference" (1997), pp. 804–805.
Alexander Stephens Alexander H. Stephens, Vice President of the Confederate States, had by 1863 become an active advocate for ending the war.Sanders, "Jefferson Davis and the Hampton Roads Peace Conference" (1997), pp. 806–807. "Stephens was also the best-known peace advocate in the South. In June 1863 he had petitioned President Davis for permission to proceed to Washington to resolve prisoner of war issues and, if the circumstances warranted, to engage Union authorities in discussions that might lead to 'a correct understanding and agreement between the two governments . . . .' In July 1863, the Southern vice president was poised to enter Washington and initiate negotiations, but the Confederate defeat at the Battle of Gettysburg doomed his efforts at obtaining an audience with President Abraham Lincoln." Stephens came close to negotiations with Lincoln in July 1863 as the South achieved several military victories, but his efforts were thwarted by the defeat at Gettysburg. By 1864, Stephens had thoroughly lost faith in Davis's leadership, and accepted an invitation by General William T. Sherman to discuss independent peace negotiations between the State of Georgia and the federal Union.
Stephens addressed the Confederate States Senate as its nominal presiding officer in Richmond on January 6, 1865, requesting approval to open formal negotiations with the United States government. Though most of the Senate remained committed to the war effort, a number of senators made it known that they supported Stephens.Sanders, "Jefferson Davis and the Hampton Roads Peace Conference" (1997), p. 808.
John Campbell John Campbell, another of the peace commissioners, had also opposed secession. Campbell served earlier on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1853 to 1861, but began to consider resignation after Abraham Lincoln's first inaugural address in March 1861. He stayed on for the spring term of 1861 and supported the Corwin Amendment to protect slavery from federal intervention.Mann, The Political and Constitutional Thought of John Archibald Campbell (1966), p. 194.Johnson, "Fort Sumter and Confederate Diplomacy" (1960), pp. 455–456. "This widely esteemed gentleman was destined to have the vital role of intermediary during the rest of the negotiations. As the secession crisis had developed, Campbell had shown himself wholeheartedly devoted to the cause of peace; to him all other questions were secondary."
Hoping to prevent a war, Campbell's colleague Justice Samuel Nelson enlisted Campbell to help broker negotiations over the status of Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor in South Carolina. On March 15, Campbell relayed to Martin Jenkins Crawford a supposed promise from Secretary of State Seward that the federal government would evacuate Fort Sumter within five days.Johnson, "Fort Sumter and Confederate Diplomacy" (1960), pp. 458–459. "Seward said he could inform Southerners that Sumter would be vacated within five days, and that the government did not intend to make any changes with regard to the Gulf of Mexico coastal forts. Later that morning Campbell went to Martin Crawford and told him that he was satisfied that Fort Sumter would be given up within five days and that there would be no change with respect to the Gulf forts." As the Fort remained occupied on March 21, Confederate commissioners pushed Campbell to find out more; Seward reassured Campbell that evacuation would take place and Campbell reassured Crawford: on March 21, March 22, April 1, and hesitantly on April 7.Johnson, "Fort Sumter and Confederate Diplomacy" (1960), pp. 460–466. "Thereupon the commissioners asked Campbell to see Seward and find out what was the matter. Campbell and Nelson took newly appointed Confederate commander of South Carolina forces, General P. G. T. Beauregard's telegram and went to the State Department building east of the White House on the 21st. They found Seward too busy for an extended conference, although he did take time to assure them that everything was all right and to make an appointment with them the following afternoon. On the strength of the Secretary's remarks Campbell left a memorandum with the Crawford commission reaffirming his confidence that steps had been taken to evacuate Sumter and that no changes unfavorable to the South would be made at Fort Pickens." Lincoln had already ordered the fort resupplied. By April 12, diplomacy had evidently failed and the Bombardment of Fort Sumter began. Campbell resigned his position on the Supreme Court and went South. Fearing he would be persecuted as a Union sympathizer in his home state of Alabama, he moved instead to New Orleans.Mann, The Political and Constitutional Thought of John Archibald Campbell (1966), pp. 23, 198–199. "In Campbell's own words, he was 'coldly received and came near being mobbed' upon his return to Alabama, following the close of the Spring Term of the Supreme Court in 1861."
Campbell declined a number of positions in the CSA government, but accepted the post of Assistant Secretary of War in President Davis' cabinet in 1862.Mann, The Political and Constitutional Thought of John Archibald Campbell (1966), p. 99. For the duration of the job, Campbell was criticized for trying to limit the scope of wartime conscription.Mann, The Political and Constitutional Thought of John Archibald Campbell (1966), pp. 202–209. By late 1864, he was pushing again for an end to the war. In an 1865 letter to Judge Benjamin R. Curtis, he described the disastrous state of the Confederacy and marveled: "You would suppose there could be no difficulty in convincing men under such circumstances that peace was required. But when I look back upon the events of the winter, I find that I was incessantly employed in making these facts known and to no result."Mann, The Political and Constitutional Thought of John Archibald Campbell (1966), pp. 209–210.
North Lincoln would clearly insist on full sovereignty of the Union. Slavery posed a more difficult problem. The Republican platform in 1864 had explicitly endorsed abolition; but pushing too hard on the slavery issue might offend mainstream politicians and voters.Johnson, "Lincoln's Solution to the Problem of Peace Terms" (1968), pp. 577–578. "The lowest common denominator of all the important factions was the preservation of the Union, but if Lincoln did not go beyond that in negotiating with the South, he would be repudiating his party's platform and would irrevocably alienate the Radicals. Yet if he made abolition a sine qua non, he would offend conservative Republicans and War Democrats. No matter what his offer, it seemed that the Democrats' chances in November would be improved. Still he could not simply remain silent (so desperate was the longing for peace) should an occasion for negotiations arise." Within this precarious political situation, in July 1864 Lincoln issued a statement via Horace Greeley:"The Sham Peace Negotiation", New York Times, 16 August 1864.
Lincoln confided to James W. Singleton that his primary concern was the Union. In Singleton's words: "that he never has and never will present any other ultimatum—that he is misunderstood on the subject of slavery—that it shall not stand in the way of peace".Johnson, "Lincoln's Solution to the Problem of Peace Terms" (1968), p. 579 Lincoln's reassurance earned him Singleton's support in the 1864 election.Johnson, "Lincoln's Solution to the Problem of Peace Terms" (1968), pp. 579–580. "So impressed was Singleton with what the South could expect from Lincoln that he refused to support the Democratic candidate George Brinton McClellan, who he believed would be more severe."
Seward openly suggested in September 1864 that if the Confederate States relented on the question of independence, the question of slavery would fall "to the arbitrament of courts of law, and to the councils of legislation". (He did not mention the ongoing debate over what became the Thirteenth Amendment, and declined to clarify his position in written correspondence.) Seward invited the South to return to the "common ark of our national security and happiness" as "brethren who have come back from their wanderings".Cox & Cox, Politics, Principle, and Prejudice (1963), p. 4., p. 37.
Having won the election, Lincoln told Congress that reaching a peace agreement with Davis would be unlikely: "He affords us no excuse to deceive ourselves. He cannot voluntarily reaccept the Union; we cannot voluntarily yield it." However, said Lincoln, the South could end the War by laying down arms:Johnson, "Lincoln's Solution to the Problem of Peace Terms" (1968), pp. 580–581.
Preparation for conference Blair duly renewed his efforts in January 1865, and traveled to Richmond on January 11. He met with Davis and outlined a plan to end the war, based partly on a North–South alliance against the French presence in Mexico. Blair assured Davis that Lincoln had become more willing to negotiate.Sanders, "Jefferson Davis and the Hampton Roads Peace Conference" (1997), p. 810–811.