Good post.
That’s why Frederick Douglass had to go around the country giving his speech: “That the Negro is a man.”
Some folks do not like to remember that the principle of preserving the union was nearly universal in the US from the middle of the 18-teens until well into the 1850’s. The Whigs, including both the Webster and Clay factions took it as a given, and the Jacksonian Democrats were forever proclaiming it. The exceptions included the strong abolitionists, led by John Quincy Adams, and the pro-slavery exponents of nullification, led by John C. Calhoun. These groups were small and unpopular minorities until the chasm widened in the 1850’s.
As a side note, Calhoun would likely have been America’s greatest statesman in the absence of the slavery issue. In the 1820’s he was so universally respected that he was elected Vice President under two Presidents of different parties. He was likely the most powerful Vice President of the 19th century, serving as a leader of the cabinet, sometimes against Jackson’s desires.