On Feb­ru­ary 23, the day Lin­coln arrived in Wash­ing­ton, he invit­ed the del­e­gates of the Wash­ing­ton Peace Con­ven­tion to a recep­tion in his par­lor suite at the Willard Hotel. Among these del­e­gates was William Cabell Rives, a for­mer con­gress­man and sen­a­tor from Vir­ginia, who, despite own­ing almost one hun­dred slaves, was a staunch union­ist. Rives, along with oth­er del­e­gates, attend­ed the Peace Con­ven­tion, which had become dead­locked as both sides clung to their beliefs. Fueled by frus­tra­tion, Rives deliv­ered a pas­sion­ate nine­ty-minute speech advo­cat­ing for rec­on­cil­i­a­tion, con­demn­ing the seces­sion of states. He empha­sized the futil­i­ty of coerc­ing seced­ing states back into the Union, pre­dict­ing that with­out imme­di­ate con­ces­sions, Vir­ginia and oth­er bor­der states would fol­low suit. Rives recount­ed wit­ness­ing the hor­rors of civ­il war while serv­ing as America’s min­is­ter to France, hop­ing to avert a sim­i­lar fate for his home­land.

At the recep­tion, over a hun­dred del­e­gates rec­og­nized Lin­coln, who tow­ered among them and dis­played an unex­pect­ed­ly gra­cious demeanor, coun­ter­ing their pre­con­ceived notions. Upon meet­ing Rives, Lin­coln remarked on his stature, intend­ing to break the ice, but quick­ly added com­pli­ments regard­ing Rives’s intel­lect and ser­vice. Rives, feel­ing small in Lincoln’s pres­ence, expressed his dis­tress over the loom­ing cri­sis, insist­ing that every­thing hinged on Lincoln’s actions. Lin­coln, how­ev­er, respond­ed con­fi­dent­ly, assert­ing that his path was clear, high­light­ing the need for obey­ing the Con­sti­tu­tion.

Rives lat­er con­veyed his con­cern that Lin­coln appeared to lack a seri­ous under­stand­ing of the urgency of the sit­u­a­tion. Days lat­er, the con­ven­tion approved a pro­posed Thir­teenth Amend­ment address­ing slav­ery, demon­strat­ing that the core of the issue lay in this very insti­tu­tion, con­trary to lat­er his­tor­i­cal inter­pre­ta­tions that down­played its sig­nif­i­cance.

As Rives pre­pared to leave for Vir­ginia, Lin­coln request­ed a fol­low-up meet­ing with him and oth­er south­ern del­e­gates. The con­ver­sa­tion grew tense as Lin­coln assured them he would hon­or the Fugi­tive Slave Act but faced warn­ings from Rives and oth­ers about the poten­tial dire con­se­quences of coer­cion, par­tic­u­lar­ly if Vir­ginia were to secede. Lin­coln promised to with­draw troops from Fort Sumter if Vir­ginia remained in the Union, yet offered no guar­an­tees. The meet­ing con­clud­ed with Lin­coln ques­tion­ing whether they would have spo­ken so freely to anoth­er pres­i­dent.

The Sen­ate reject­ed the pro­posed amend­ment out­right, but a sim­i­lar pro­pos­al guar­an­tee­ing the pro­tec­tion of exist­ing slav­ery was passed in the House and Sen­ate. This amend­ment became known as the Shad­ow or Ghost Amend­ment, remain­ing tech­ni­cal­ly unrat­i­fied into the twen­ty-first cen­tu­ry, despite Lin­coln for­ward­ing it for rat­i­fi­ca­tion by the states, adding to the com­plex lega­cy of the loom­ing civ­il ten­sions.