<P> In the Congressional session that began in December 1860, more than 200 resolutions with respect to slavery, including 57 resolutions proposing constitutional amendments, were introduced in Congress . Most represented compromises designed to avert military conflict . Senator Jefferson Davis, a Democrat from Mississippi, proposed one that explicitly protected property rights in slaves . A group of House members proposed a national convention to accomplish secession as a "dignified, peaceful, and fair separation" that could settle questions like the equitable distribution of the federal government's assets and rights to navigate the Mississippi River . </P> <P> On February 27, 1861, the House of Representatives considered the following text of a proposed constitutional amendment: </P> <P> No amendment of this Constitution, having for its object any interference within the States with the relations between their citizens and those described in second section of the first article of the Constitution as "all other persons", shall originate with any State that does not recognize that relation within its own limits, or shall be valid without the assent of every one of the States composing the Union . </P> <P> Corwin proposed his own text as a substitute and those who opposed him failed on a vote of 68 to 121 . The House then declined to give the resolution the required two - thirds vote, with a tally of 120 to 61, and then of 123 to 71 . On February 28, 1861, however, the House approved Corwin's version by a vote of 133 to 65 . The contentious debate in the House was relieved by abolitionist Republican Owen Lovejoy of Illinois, who questioned the amendment's reach: "Does that include polygamy, the other twin relic of barbarism?" Missouri Democrat John S. Phelps answered: "Does the gentleman desire to know whether he shall be prohibited from committing that crime?" </P>

What was needed to keep the southern states in the union during the constitutional convention