Continuing efforts were made to negotiate a peaceful separation. Virginia sent 3 commissioners to meet with Lincoln……………..According to the VA commissioners he equivocated as to whether he would resort to armed force to coerce the seceded states back into the union. VA at that point had not seceded but was in a state of continuous session to await further developments……………
Lincoln equivocated with the commissioners. However his greatest concern voiced to them was, “What about my tariff?”
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This quote about the tariff is supposed to be from C R Vaughan, DD, Editor, Discussions by Robert Dabney, DD, LLD, Volume IV, Hamsburg VA Sprinkle Publications, 1979, pp 87-100 quoting the memoirs of Col John B Baldwin, a member of the VA Peace Commission.