FLT-bird:
"Oh, and discussions that would culminate in the Corwin Amendment started in late 1860."
Naw, the US had debated slavery related issues since 1776.
The specific proposal which eventually ended up as Corwin began with Mississippi's Democrat Sen. Jefferson Davis's February 2, 1860 proposals in Congress.
Some of Davis' proposals found their way into the 1860 Southern Democrat (Breckenridge) party platform, and then all of them reemerged in the December 1860 debates over Crittenden's Compromise proposals.
In the end, Sen. Davis's insistence -- that Congress had no authority to abolish slavery within states -- made its way into both the new CSA Constitution and the proposed US Corwin Amendment.
Davis's other proposals regarding slavery in territories and an alleged slaveholders' "right of soujourn" were rejected by Republicans in December 1860, hence secession of Mississippi (#2 to secede) and other Deep South states.
FLT-bird: "Correct! And the Corwin Amendment was rejected by the original 7 seceding states."
Naw... the Corwin Amendment was eagerly accepted and adopted by the Montgomery, Alabama Constitutional Convention into their new CSA constitution, along with Jefferson Davis's other proposals to Congress from February 2, 1860.
Confederates loved Corwin and copied and pasted it into their Montgomery constitution:
Article I Section 9(4) "No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed."
FLT-bird regarding CSA constitution's use of words like "slave":
"They were simply more honest shameless." Fixed it.
FLT-bird: "The Southern Slaveholders who wrote the 1787 Constitution did not think they would need any such provision and could not imagine that it would even be an issue.
The sovereign states did not delegate any such power to the newly proposed federal government and they never thought anybody would even suggest the federal government could directly interfere in states like that."
So far as I can tell, that was exactly Abraham Lincoln's opinion in 1860.
Lincoln then saw no need for an amendment along lines of Sen. Davis's February 1860 proposal, eventually adopted in Corwin in March 1861.
As far as Lincoln was concerned, such an amendment was unnecessary, but, if it helped keep the Union together, he did not oppose it.
FLT-bird on alleged slaveholders' "right of sojourn": "That was the law in the US at the time as per the majority opinion of the US Supreme Court.
The US Constitution was silent on the issue though all of the 13 original states had slavery."
Just as the 1787 US Constitution granted no authority to Federal government to abolish slavery in states, it also granted Federal government no authority to limit states from restricting and abolishing slavery themselves -- suggestions to the contrary from Crazy Roger Taney's 1857 Dred Scott ruling notwithstanding.
FLT-bird: "The ban on the foreign slave trade was quite meaningful and was something the US Constitution did not do."
And yet... and yet... the fact remains that the Confederacy's largest source for imported slaves would be the USA, and those imports were not outlawed.
Therefore, the CSA's constitutional provision is meaningless eyewash.
FLT-bird: "That is a gross mischaracterization.
They had a right of transit.
They could not stay for any extended period of time with their slaves.
They could not settle there with their slaves.
They had a right to pass through.
That is all that the majority of the US Supreme Court ruled they had and that is all they had under the Confederate Constitution."
And yet... and yet... Crazy Roger placed no time limit on his new-found "slaveholders' right of sojourn".
Dred Scott himself had lived for many years in free states and territories, and yet... and yet... in Crazy Rogers' eyes that was not enough to make poor Dred Scott a free man, much less a full US citizen.
Why is that, you might ask?
Answer: because Crazy Roger was a raging Democrat lunatic, and for no other conceivable reason.
FLT-bird: "Its also worth noticing that Republicans introduced it, many Republicans voted for it, Lincoln supported it and used his influence to get it ratified in multiple Northern states."
Your constant references to alleged historian Doris Kerns Goodwin notwithstanding, there is no actual evidence for Lincoln's direct involvement with Corwin either in Congress or in states.
FLT-bird: "All you've got here is namecalling.
The majority unanimous ravings of Southern Democrat lunatics of the US Supreme Court issued their ruling and as such it was the highly disputed law of the land."
Fixed it.
You can easily credit Crazy Roger with electing Republican majorities to Congress and Lincoln as president, in response to Crazy's Dred Scott opinion.
Crazy Roger's insane SCOTUS:
FLT-bird: "Slavery and owning slaves weren't seen as being any big deal in 1787 and certainly not the moral issue people would see it as today.
Given all these people were slave owners and all of the original 13 states had slavery its hardly a stretch to think they would have agreed that a US Citizen could go into any US territory with his property - that includes his slaves."
Believe me, I do understand why you want to minimize Crazy Roger's raging insanities, and make him appear like any other normal human being, and therefore you ignore his worst lunacies and focus on just what might possibly be defended.
And the reasons are obvious -- in 1857 Crazy Roger was not alone in his opinions and they were shared widely by slaveholders and slavery defenders throughout the South.
They were all just as crazy as Roger was.
Do I need to list out for you all the craziness Democrats like Crazy Roger inflicted on the USA in 1857?
FLT-bird on 1787 Founders: "It was a hope in some vague murky future that slavery would wither away. "
Nooooo... it was far more than a "vague hope" because our Founders were willing to take legal actions to restrict and abolish slavery wherever possible, a prime example being abolition of slavery in the Old Northwest Territories in 1787.
In 1787 the Old Northwest Territories were an area 50% larger than the eventual borders of the six Southern States combined.
Further, by 1787, abolition was already the law in Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Pennsylvania -- a total of 65% of all Northern state area.
So, if we add the 65% of Northern States area plus the Northwest Territories, then we see that in 1787, almost exactly half of the entirety of US square miles were under laws abolishing slavery -- that was vastly more than a "vague hope".
Bottom line: in 1787 our Founders held abolition as far more than a "vague hope" for the future.
They had already acted to legally abolish slavery in half of all US land area.
BROJOEK:Naw, the US had debated slavery related issues since 1776.Yeah. Discussions started in late 1860 right after the election and everyone knew secession was coming.
BROJOEK: In the end, Sen. Davis's insistence -- that Congress had no authority to abolish slavery within states -- made its way into both the new CSA Constitution and the proposed US Corwin Amendment. Davis's other proposals regarding slavery in territories and an alleged slaveholders' "right of soujourn" were rejected by Republicans in December 1860, hence secession of Mississippi (#2 to secede) and other Deep South states.
No. Slave owners had the right of transit already as per the Dred Scott decision. There was nothing to decide, as the Supreme Court had already ruled. The idea of a constitutional amendment expressly protecting slavery was one that occurred to lots of people - not just Davis as you would have it. Had Southern states really been concerned about the continuation of slavery, they could have simply accepted the Corwin amendment - yet they did not.
BROJOEK: Naw... the Corwin Amendment was eagerly accepted and adopted by the Montgomery, Alabama Constitutional Convention into their new CSA constitution, along with Jefferson Davis's other proposals to Congress from February 2, 1860.
Yeah. They could have just accepted it and stayed in the US where slavery was not threatened in any case. That way they could have avoided the risk of war. Yet they rejected it.
BROJOEK: Confederates loved Corwin and copied and pasted it into their Montgomery constitution:
The Corwin Amendment came out before the Confederate Constitution. Your timeline is backwards.
BROJOEK: regarding CSA constitution's use of words like "slave": "They were simply more honest honest." Fixed it.
Fixed it back
BROJOEK: So far as I can tell, that was exactly Abraham Lincoln's opinion in 1860. Lincoln then saw no need for an amendment along lines of Sen. Davis's February 1860 proposal, eventually adopted in Corwin in March 1861. As far as Lincoln was concerned, such an amendment was unnecessary, but, if it helped keep the Union together, he did not oppose it.
Correct! Lincoln was of the opinion that the Corwin Amendment merely explicitly spelled out that which already existed under the US Constitution. Slavery simply was not threatened in the US. Lest anyone think it was, explicit protection of slavery in the US Constitution was a bargaining chip the North was quite happy to offer. The original 7 seceding states turned it down.
BROJOEK: Just as the 1787 US Constitution granted no authority to Federal government to abolish slavery in states, it also granted Federal government no authority to limit states from restricting and abolishing slavery themselves -- suggestions to the contrary from Crazy Roger Taney's 1857 Dred Scott ruling notwithstanding.
This was not contrary to the majority opinion of the US Supreme Court in the Dred Scott ruling. All a slave owner could do was transit with his slaves. He could not reside in a state that had abolished slavery. He could not employ his slaves in an enterprise there.
BROJOEK: And yet... and yet... the fact remains that the Confederacy's largest source for imported slaves would be the USA, and those imports were not outlawed. Therefore, the CSA's constitutional provision is meaningless eyewash.
And yet the ONLY POSSIBLE place slaves could be imported was from the same places they could be "imported" from before. The situation was not changed. Banned was the African Slave Trade as well as the importation of slaves from foreign countries which the US Constitution allowed for 20 years.
BROJOEK: And yet... and yet... Crazy Roger placed no time limit on his new-found "slaveholders' right of sojourn". Dred Scott himself had lived for many years in free states and territories, and yet... and yet... in Crazy Rogers' eyes that was not enough to make poor Dred Scott a free man, much less a full US citizen. Why is that, you might ask? Answer: because Crazy Roger was a raging Democrat lunatic, and for no other conceivable reason.
And yet, and yet, that was the majority opinion of the US Supreme Court. Not litigated or decided by the Dred Scott case was how long a slave owner could have to transit with his slaves. States could enact laws governing that and declare that any state on its territory longer than a reasonable period for transit were thereby deemed to be legally emancipated. This almost certainly have been upheld by the Supreme Court of the US since all they had ruled was that a slave owner had the right of transit with his property - not that the state ban on slavery was repealed as you would have it.
BROJOEK: Your constant references to alleged historian Doris Kerns Goodwin notwithstanding, there is no actual evidence for Lincoln's direct involvement with Corwin either in Congress or in states.
There is eyewitness testimony from numerous sources that Lincoln worked directly with Republicans in Congress to draft the Corwin Amendment, get it introduced in Congress and get it passed both by Congress as well as by multiple Northern states.
BROJOEK: The majority unanimous ravings of Southern Democrat lunatics of the US Supreme Court issued their ruling and as such it was the highly disputed law of the land."
No matter how much you or anybody else does not like it, that was the ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States and as such was the law of the land. Your incessant childish namecalling changes nothing.
BROJOEK: You can easily credit Crazy Roger with electing Republican majorities to Congress and Lincoln as president, in response to Crazy's Dred Scott opinion.
That might've affected politics. Then again, most people were far more concerned about the Morrill Tariff which was working its way through Congress at this time.
BROJOEK: Believe me, I do understand why you want to minimize Crazy Roger's raging insanities, and make him appear like any other normal human being, and therefore you ignore his worst lunacies and focus on just what might possibly be defended. And the reasons are obvious -- in 1857 Crazy Roger was not alone in his opinions and they were shared widely by slaveholders and slavery defenders throughout the South. They were all just as crazy as Roger was. Do I need to list out for you all the craziness Democrats like Crazy Roger inflicted on the USA in 1857?
Believe me, I understand why you act like a gradeschool kid on the playground and splutter idiotic insults and try to pretend that it was all one man. But it wasn't. It was the majority opinion of the SCOTUS.
No matter how much you don't like it, people in the past were different and had a different worldview. All of the original 13 colonies had slavery. The overwhelming majority of the Founding Fathers were slave owners. To them slavery was something that could be compromised over and that would die off in time. They were right about the latter. Industrialization did kill off slavery throughout the Western world. What they really got wrong was: 1) they should have expressly stated that any state could unilaterally secede 2) they should have placed limits on the General Welfare clause (as Patrick Henry pointed out) 3) they should have limited the federal government's ability to borrow money (as Thomas Jefferson lamented they had not)
Had they done those things whatever disputes arose between the states could have been resolved AND the massive leviathan in Washington DC would not have been able to unconstitutionally usurp all the power it has from the states.
BROJOEK: Nooooo... it was far more than a "vague hope" because our Founders were willing to take legal actions to restrict and abolish slavery wherever possible, a prime example being abolition of slavery in the Old Northwest Territories in 1787.
They hoped it would wither away in the future and sought to restrict its spread as it was.
BROJOEK: Further, by 1787, abolition was already the law in Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Pennsylvania -- a total of 65% of all Northern state area.
Wrong. Rhode Island and Connecticut passed bills banning slavery in 1843 and 1848, respectively, and New Hampshire passed a final abolition bill in 1857. Vermont was not admitted as a state until 1791. Massachusetts had abolished slavery in 1783-84.
"Pennsylvania was the first to agree to gradual abolition during the Revolution. First, the Executive Council suggested to the Assembly in 1778 that they stop further importation of slaves as a first step towards emancipation. An initial emancipation bill, framed that year, called for the children of slaves born after the effective date to be freed after serving 18 years for females and 21 years for males. It also ordered slaves arriving with new residents of the state freed within six months, although they could be indentured until the age of 28 for minors or for four years for adults. Passage of the law was delayed due to the war but the ideas were reinforced in 1779 when the Council declared that slavery was incongruent with the goals of the Revolution and a disgrace to a people who were then fighting for the cause of liberty. When the state returned to the abolition bill they revised it so that all children under the bill would serve until the age of twenty-eight. This law was passed in 1780; it did not free any slave born before that year and the first emancipation under the law would not happen until 1808. With its provisions for 28 years in bondage, the law gave a two generation grace period for slavery to die out. Total abolition did not happen in Pennsylvania until 1847."
https://civildiscourse-historyblog.com/blog/2017/1/3/when-did-slavery-really-end-in-the-north#:~:text=Rhode%20Island%20and%20Connecticut%20passed,final%20abolition%20bill%20in%201857.
BROJOEK: So, if we add the 65% of Northern States area plus the Northwest Territories, then we see that in 1787, almost exactly half of the entirety of US square miles were under laws abolishing slavery -- that was vastly more than a "vague hope".
What we see is that you are grossly ignorant about the history of slavery in the North.