While the Virginia Secessation Convention was in session (and its first vote was not to secede), Staunton's John Baldwin (a University of Virginia graduate) met with Lincoln to try to reach an agreement that would avoid war. Lincoln's concern as voiced in that meeting was not slavery - he never mentioned it - his concern was the loss of the tariffs and duties being collected through the states that had seceded. Baldwin proposed an agreement that, among other things, would include a guarentee of the rights of the states. Baldwin also stated Virginia would try to influence other states not to secede, and would encourage those states that had seceded to rejoin the Union. There were other details I won't attempt to summarize here, but I do encourage those of you who have no idea what I'm writing about to do a little studying of our history.

Baldwin told Lincoln invading the seceded states would eliminate all hope of an early settlement. But - Lincoln had already put that plan in motion, they parted with no agreement, Lincoln called for the raising of an army to invade the seceded states (much of any invasion to travel through Virginia), and that (not slavery) caused Virginia's convention to reverse gears and vote to secede.

Many of Virginia's leaders were not in favor of seceding prior to this. For those of you who don't know, study the 1860 presidential election, the number of candidates, what each candidate stood for, and who won the race in Virginia. Those were turbulant times, and I'm fortunate enough to have letters before and during the war, copies of position papers from a member of the Jefferson Society for an 1859 debate, and speeches leading up to the 1860 election, that belonged to some of my ancestors. Was slavery a big factor leading to the first states seceding? Of course it was. Was slavery what kept Lincoln from reaching an agreement that might have avoided war? No. Was the preservation of slavery what Virginia supported in the 1860 election, and what caused it to change its original convention vote not to secede? No, and I bet that's not included in whatever our hotly debated and revised history standards state (I confess I haven't read them).

Back to the original post - a successful negotiation to avoid the war would not have depended on a demand by Lincoln to end slavery. The 1860 Republican platform had slavery continuing where it existed - but not to be expanded into new territories and states. "[T]hat negotiation" would not have helped slaves in states where it already existed, that was not an issue Lincoln was interested in.