“No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.”
This is the Corwin amendment. You should read about it and learn.
"I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution—which amendment, however, I have not seen—has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service....holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.
For DL and TF, there was an amusing exchange during the "contentious debate": Corwin proposed his own text as a substitute and those who opposed him failed on a vote of 68 to 121. The House then declined to give the resolution the required two-thirds vote, with a tally of 120 to 61, and then of 123 to 71.[10][11] On February 28, 1861, however, the House approved Corwin's version by a vote of 133 to 65.[12] The contentious debate in the House was relieved by abolitionist Republican Owen Lovejoy of Illinois, who questioned the amendment's reach: "Does that include polygamy, the other twin relic of barbarism?" Missouri Democrat John S. Phelps answered: "Does the gentleman desire to know whether he shall be prohibited from committing that crime?"
It is good to see American humor still holding up strongly during those times. It also, just might make DT sound not quite so crazy after all. It turns out that there are many more than just those two "twin relics of barbarism".
I know the Corwin amendment, it was only one of several proposals in Congress to find a political solution which could save the Union.
But the Confederacy rejected all such out of hand, indeed refused even to discuss them with Congress.
This should be kept firmly in mind when we hear allegations of how Jefferson Davis sent emissaries to discuss secession with both Presidents Buchanan and Lincoln.
But the US Constitution gives Congress authority to deal with those matters, and no emissaries were ever sent to Congress.
lacrew: "Lincoln later used emancipation as a weapon against the south...but without genuine interest in freeing slaves.
How do I know that?
For starters, the proclamation did not apply to any slave holding union states."
What you're deliberately ignoring is that Lincoln in 1861 or 1862 had no constitutional authority to free slaves, except as "contraband of war" in Confederate areas under Union Army control.
So Lincoln did as much as he was allowed to do, at the time.
And in 1863 Radical Republicans in Congress began submitting bills for a Constitutional Amendment to abolish slavery, even in Union states, one of which was approved in early 1865, ratified by December 1865.
Bottom line: Republican abolitionism was certainly a minority view in 1860 and 1861, but that was beginning to change in 1862 and by 1865 became the 13th Amendment law of the land.
Do you disagree?