Letter to Unnamed Recipient Discussing Peace Conference of 1861

University of Va. Feb. 28. 1861

My dear Sir,

I am afflicted with too intense an anxiety to learn definitely, the impression the Peace Conference Compromise has made upon the Convention, - I mean the rational part of it, - to weigh the reasonableness of begging you - engrossed as I doubt not your time is, - to inform me. I received it myself, with a joy & satisfaction almost unalloyed. I was indeed, at first somewhat uneasy at the phraseology of the 1st Section, touching the introduction of slave property into the territories south of 36 degree 30, fearing that the master's rights were left to be determined by the Common Law. A second reading, however, showed that the Common Law was intended only to regulate the cognizance of the Counts. And yet I must {still} confess that I could have wished it more clearly confessed by what law the master's rights are to be determined.

As to complicating the skein, already to dangerously led by insisting on a provision for territory hereafter to be acquired,

I have no patience with so reckless a trifling with the inestimable interests at stake!

Section 2 contains a provision which I like for the present exigences, although it is obnoxious to some objections, It will tend to recommend the adjustment to the North, no doubt,

Section 3 is going to be, I fear, Causa termina. One of our much conservative men is beginning to roar about "[branding?] the institution" &c, because the right of transit is expressly denied. Not content with enjoying in Penna, or Massth, all the privileges which a citizen of this state enjoys, they insist on carrying with them the privileges of their domicil. Dear lovers, as they are, of State-rights, they would patronize only the rights of their own States.

Section 7 is complained of because the government is not to pay the expenses of the pursuit, as well as the value of the slave.