And how did they know this? I've run the numbers several times. Let's see. 11 Confederate states, would require a Union of 44 states to outvote them. 33 in favor of Abolition needed to override the 11 opposed.
Couldn't have a Union of 44 states until 1896 at the earliest. Add to the "no" vote, the five Union slave states, and it couldn't be done at all. (Would require a Union of 64 states.)
So what you are telling me is they couldn't count to 44?
That's certainly possible, maybe even likely.
It is a virtual certainty. You could not override the "no" vote of the 11 confederate states along with the "no" vote of the five Union slave states. It couldn't be done.
Add to this Lincoln's offer of the Corwin Amendment, and you couldn't even attempt to create an amendment to ban slavery. So the truth that most Union apologists absolutely refuse to face is that eliminating Slavery was effectively impossible by any "legal" means at their disposal. The Union would have continued being a slave holding Union, and so it is extremely deceitful to claim they were fighting for something that was legally impossible within the constraints of the Union.
The Union wasn't fighting to stop slavery. The Union was fighting to stop the Southern states from being independent of Northern economic Control.
Slaveowners saw the slave system as a success. They felt it should be - deserved to be - spread westward (and southwestward). They saw that Republican majorities in Congress would block that expansion, and that was one reason why they wanted secession. They also understood that there were other ways - short of constitutional amendments - that a Republican government could make life harder for slaveowners.
What would the courts look like after years of Republicans in the White House? What would happen to gag rules in Congress and bans on sending abolitionist literature through the mails? What would happen to slavery in the District of Columbia? Republican control of Congress and the White House could mean that compensated abolition plans would be discussed and perhaps even passed.
You didn't need a constitutional amendment to make things hot for the slaveowners -- not as they saw it themselves, anyway. Southern Democrats had been an important power in US government before Lincoln. They knew how to wield power and the knew what it would be like if they lost power to non-slaveowners and those who weren't sympathetic to the interests and wishes of slaveowners.
Slaveowners saw the slave system as a success. They felt it should be - deserved to be - spread westward (and southwestward). They saw that Republican majorities in Congress would block that expansion, and that was one reason why they wanted secession. They also understood that there were other ways - short of constitutional amendments - that a Republican government could make life harder for slaveowners.
What would the courts look like after years of Republicans in the White House? What would happen to gag rules in Congress and bans on sending abolitionist literature through the mails? What would happen to slavery in the District of Columbia? Republican control of Congress and the White House could mean that compensated abolition plans would be discussed and perhaps even passed.
You didn't need a constitutional amendment to make things hot for the slaveowners -- not as they saw it themselves, anyway. Southern Democrats had been an important power in US government before Lincoln. They knew how to wield power and the knew what it would be like if they lost power to non-slaveowners and those who weren't sympathetic to the interests and wishes of slaveowners.