I was recently told that the Confederate states once offered to stay in the Union if they were given two years to end slavery. I’ve never heard anything like this and I’m not anxious to believe it, is there any truth to it? Were there ever serious negotiations along these lines?

by YourBuddyChurch
Georgy_K_Zhukov

No such possibility was seriously entertained by the government calling itself the Confederate States of America. This older answer is one you may find relevant, and it shows how unwilling the South was in such a thing. It is possible this is a very garbled misunderstanding of the situation in 1865 and last ditch attempts mentioned, but that is about it.

chadtr5

This is probably in reference to the Hampton Roads Conference in 1865. Lincoln met with three Confederate peace commissioners, led by Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens to discuss the possibility of a compromise peace settlement.

Obviously, slavery was going to be a sticking point in this negotiation. Adding to this, the thirteenth amendment (abolishing slavery) had passed Congress on January 31, just days before the Hampton Roads meeting but had not yet been ratified.

According to Stephens, Lincoln made a proposal at the conference to agree to a delayed ratification of the thirteenth amendment if the southern states ended the war. Stephens records Lincoln telling him:

I'll tell you what I would do, if I were in your place: I would go home and get the Governor of the State to call the Legislature together... and ratify this Constitutional Amendment [the 13th amendment] prospectively, so as to take effect -- say in five years... Whatever may have been the views of your people before the war, they must be convinced now, that Slavery is doomed. It cannot last long in any event, and the best course, it seems to me, for your public men to pursue, would be to adopt such a policy as will avoid as far as possible, the evils of immediate emancipation.

Lincoln also offered the possibility of paying a substantial emancipation indemnity. Lincoln was apparently pretty serious about this (though there's some dispute about what actually was said). Needless to say the Confederacy did go for these ideas.

The backstory to the Hampton Roads Conference is a bit bizarre. Francis Preston Blair, a close ally of Lincoln and organized of the Republican Party, developed a peace plan under which the north and south would collaboratively attack the French government of Mexico. See here for more. (edited to fix typos)