more than 100 of the nation's leading politicians, held February 8–27, 1861, in Washington, D.C. The conference, led by former President John Tyler, was the final formal effort of the states to avert the start of war. There too, the Compromise proposals failed, as the provision guaranteeing slave ownership throughout all Western territories and future acquisitions again proved unpalatable. A February 1861 editorial in the Charleston Courier (Charleston, Missouri) summed up the mood prevalent in Southern-leaning border counties as the Crittenden proposals went down in defeat: "Men at Washington think there is no chance for peace, and indeed we can see but little, everything looks gloomy. The Crittenden resolutions have been voted down again and again. Is there any other proposition which will win, that the South can accept? If not—there comes war—and woe to the wives and daughters of our land; beauty will be but an incentive to crime, and plunder but pay for John Brown raids. Let our citizens be prepared for the worst, it may come." This statement by editor George Whitcomb came in response to a fiery "letter to the editor" excoriating "disunion", from US Representative John William Noell, whose district included Charleston. In popular culture The novel Underground Airlines (2016) by Ben Winters is set in an alternate history where the Crittenden Compromise was accepted following the assassination of President-elect Abraham Lincoln. By the twenty-first century, slavery had been retained in the "Hard Four" states of Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. See also Corwin Amendment Crittenden-Johnson Resolution Missouri Compromise Origins of the American Civil War References Secession crisis of 1860–61 United States slavery law 36th United States Congress Proposed amendments to the United States Constitution 1860 documents Political compromises in the United States