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More to the point, while the Confederate Constitution protected slavery in the places it was currently legal, it made importing slaves ANYWHERE, to ANYWHERE illegal. That meant that slavery as an institution would be pinched off in the South in a generation or two.

I'm not so sure RinaseaoDs.

Article 9 of the confederate constitution states:

[The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or Duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.] The importation of negroes of the African race from any foreign country other than the slaveholding States or territories of the United States of America, is hereby forbidden; and Congress is required to pass such laws as shall effectually prevent the same. Congress shall also have power to prohibit the introduction of slaves from any State not a member of, or territory not belonging to, this Confederacy.

The structure of the importation bans was such that no new slaves could be imported from outside the states where slavery already existed. To sustain slavery on a viable ongoing basis and maintain economic growth, importation from outside the slaveholding states would have been required.

The CSA banned it. Transferring existing slaves among owners in existing slave states was an enforcement and recognition of their property rights, and not an endorsement of slavery. That they called it out in their constitution was political. Slavery was becoming untenable. Lee himself had that issue with the Custis slaves, and he wrote that the institution was worse on whites than it was blacks. At least blacks, he reasoned, could leave Africa. All whites gained was the corruption that it brought them morally.

The recognition of property rights accompanied by a ban on importing new slaves was the only political way they could satisfy slave holding states while ridding itself of slavery.

What is not well enough stated is that the pressure to end slavery was coming from Europe - a key US customer for our goods. Lincoln flip-flopped on his position on the inferiority of negroes with the Emancipation Proclamation because the war wasn’t going his way, true. The real reason, again, was bucks. If Europe recognized the CSA the way the French backed the rebels against the English, Lincoln was going to lose.