The election for members of the Virginia convention took place on the first Monday in February, 1861, and a large majority of the delegates elected were opposed to secession. The convention assembled at the Capitol in Richmond, on the 13th of February, and a decided union man, Mr. John Janney, of Loudoun, was chosen President. A deliberative body containing more general talent and worth had rarely, if ever, assembled in the state, and all of the members seemed to be impressed with the momentous character of the crisis. This convention contained one distinguished gentleman who had been President of the United States, another who had been governor of the state, a number who had filled seats in the Federal Congress, two who had been heads of departments in the Cabinet at Washington, besides many others among the most talented and distinguished statesmen and lawyers of the state. There was a variety of sentiment among the Union members as to the terms upon which it would be safe for the state to remain in the Union, but a very large majority were earnestly in favor of some adjustment in the way of amendments to the Constitution of the United States, by which the seceded states could be induced to return, while the members favoring immediate secession constituted a very small minority. A committee was at once appointed, which after considerable deliberation reported a plan of adjustment for submission to the other states through Congress, after its adoption by the convention. In the meantime the Peace Convention which assembled at Washington, had adopted a proposition for adjustment which met with no favor at the hands of the Republican members of Congress, and was not entirely satisfactory to a majority of the Virginia Convention. Propositions of compromise in Congress had also failed. The Virginia Convention engaged earnestly in the discussion of the report of its committee and counter propositions, and continued it until the month of April, having in the meantime voted down, by a very large majority, a direct proposition for secession. It is difficult to describe the intense anxiety felt by most of the members of the convention to preserve the peace of the country and effect an amicable settlement of the troubles. Lincoln had been inaugurated president on the 4th of March, and had delivered an inaugural address that was enigmatical in its terms. During the whole of the discussion which was progressing in the Virginia convention, the members engaged in the effort to preserve peace and restore the Union, received no offer whatever of co-operation from the occupant of the White House, and no direct answer ever reached them as coming from him to persons who approached him on the questions engrossing all hearts and minds in the state.