Changes

==Commissioner for the State of Virginia==

==Commissioner for the State of Virginia==

The legislature of Virginia appointed him a commissioner to confer with [[President Buchanan]] and arrange, if possible, for the maintenance of the status quo in the matter of Fort Sumter, in Charleston harbor; but his efforts were unavailing.  He did not abate his activity, however, and the Peace Congress which assembled at Washington on the 4th of February 1861, pursuant to a resolution of the Virginia legislature, and over which he preside, was largely the result of his labors.  The constitutional amendment proposed by the conference, however, did not meet with his approbation, and his action in signing and transmitting the resolution to Congress was merely formal.  On the 13th of February, while absent in Washington on this mission, he was elected to the Virginia convention at Richmond, and took his seat on the 1st of March.  In the convention he advocated immediate secession as the only proper course under the circumstances.  He continued to serve as a member of the convention until it adjourned in December, in the meantime acting as one of the commissioners to negotiate a temporary union between Virginia and the [[Confederate States of America]].  He was also a member of the provisional Confederate Congress from May 1861, when the capital of the Confederacy was removed from Montgomery, Alabama, to Richmond.  He was elected a member of the House of Representatives of the permanent Congress, but died on the 18th of January, 1862, in Richmond, before that body assembled.

The legislature of Virginia appointed him a commissioner to confer with [[President Buchanan]] and arrange, if possible, for the maintenance of the status quo in the matter of Fort Sumter, in Charleston harbor; but his efforts were unavailing.  He did not abate his activity, however, and the Peace Congress which assembled at Washington on the 4th of February 1861, pursuant to a resolution of the Virginia legislature, and over which he preside, was largely the result of his labors.  The constitutional amendment proposed by the conference, however, did not meet with his approbation, and his action in signing and transmitting the resolution to Congress was merely formal.  On the 13th of February, while absent in Washington on this mission, he was elected to the Virginia convention at Richmond, and took his seat on the 1st of March.  In the convention he advocated immediate secession as the only proper course under the circumstances.  He continued to serve as a member of the convention until it adjourned in December, in the meantime acting as one of the commissioners to [[negotiate]] a temporary union between Virginia and the [[Confederate States of America]].  He was also a member of the provisional Confederate Congress from May 1861, when the capital of the Confederacy was removed from Montgomery, Alabama, to Richmond.  He was elected a member of the House of Representatives of the permanent Congress, but died on the 18th of January, 1862, in Richmond, before that body assembled.

==Personal life==

==Personal life==