South Carolina had dispatched the moderate legislator Christopher Memminger to Richmond to discuss the state of the Union and raise the idea of a "southern conference" that would provide the slave states with a united front in the sectional crisis.  He was well received in the city and gave a four-hour speech at the Virginia statehouse that pointed out the dangers of inaction in the face of Northern antagonism.  (By John Osborne) 
Source Citation
William A. Link, Roots of Secession: Slavery and Politics in Antebellum Virginia (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 195-196.
    Date Certainty
    Exact
    Type
    Lawmaking/Litigating

    How to Cite This Page: "South Carolina Commissioner Christopher Memminger speaks for four hours before the Virginia legislature," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hddev.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/30934.