I believe that at least part of the reason for secession, was that the election of Lincoln had many in the south believe that he was going to pass laws outlawing slavery in all states.
The 10th Amendment, because the Constitution was silent on the issue until subsequent Amendments were passed and adopted.
Nothing in the Constitution gave the United States authority over slavery until passage of the Thirteenth Amendment.
Prior to that it was a state issue.
The Emancipation Proclamation was legal because the slaves in the Rebel Confederacy were contraband of war, aiding in the unlawful rebellion.
The Thirteenth Amendment gave the Congress the power to ban it nationwide.
A bill to prohibit slavery might have passed the House. But it certainly would have been filibustered to death in the Senate. Therefore, zero chance of being passed.
Let’s start here:
States have rights, feds have enumerated powers.
Because the federal government operates under the principle of delegated / reserved powers. States do the delegating / reserving. This isn’t a “federal law trumps state law” question at all. The Civil War did not end slavery in the US. All during and after the war slavery remained legal in Missouri, Maryland and Kentucky because they sided with the Union. Specifically, the US Constitution did not grant slaves full “person-hood” . The Constitution had to be amended to grant full status to former slaves. Additionally, slavery was economically beneficial to many northern states since the “slave” states generated about 63% of the federal government’s income through excise taxes so prior to the war there was no enthusiasm for an amendment. Finally, Lincoln was prepared to assure slavery’s continuation prior to Fort Sumter if the seceded states rejoined the Union. Does that help?
Slavery should have been abolished when the Constitution was drafted. And abortion too.
Excerpts
"I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That "all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people..." To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition."
"Nor are they within either of the general phrases, which are the two following:
"1. To lay taxes to provide for the general welfare of the United States, that is to say, "to lay taxes for the purpose of providing for the general welfare." For the laying of taxes is the power, and the general welfare the purpose for which the power is to be exercised. They are not to lay taxes ad libitum for any purpose they please but only to pay the debts or provide for the welfare of the Union. In like manner, they are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare but only to lay taxes for that purpose. To consider the latter phrase, not as describing the purpose of the first, but as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please, which might be for the good of the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless.
"It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and, as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please."
ML/NJ
Back then the federal government was held to the enumerated powers, not like today. The federal government had no authority over slavery in the constitution.
Even after the Civil War, the 13th Amendment needed to be passed to allow the federal government that authority. It wasn’t “federal laws” that stopped slavery, nor Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, it was the 13th Amendment.
The point of the Missouri compromise was to ensure that abolitionist parties would never have a majority in the Senate.
Slaves were private property. If Congress wanted to abolish slavery before the 13th amendment, it would have to have compensated the owners under the 5th amendment. The Dred Scott decision even limited the states’ powers on slavery when it ruled that slaves did not become free when on ‘free soil’.
Before Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation (which only applied to areas NOT under US control) Union generals were ordered to return runaway slaves to their owners (but many did resist).
As far as the House possibly passing an antislavery bill, the House was operating under ‘the Gag Rule’ which pretty much prohibited any discussion of slavery. John Quincy Adams spent much of his House career railing against the Gag Rule.
Cuz 80% of all taxes collected at the federal level came from
Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia.
90% of all Federal dollars went to infrastructure spending in the northern states.
Well for one thing slaves were regarded as property and the government could not take you property without due process and just compensation. But I guess that would not have prevented them from banning the acquisition of new slaves. I suspect the problem was more political than legal. There were several attempts to restrict slavery before the war. The Missouri compromise comes to mind. They did not work.
Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution says: “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.” This means that before 1808, there was a tax on the importation of slaves. In 1807, Congress passed, and President Jefferson signed, an act to prohibit the importation of slaves. It went into effect in 1808.
As we know, it was difficult to abolish slavery, but the Founding Fathers did what they could to abolish the practice.
Slavery wasn’t the real reason for the war. Lincoln did not want to lose the enormous taxes the south supplied to the federal government. He fell back on the issue of slavery as an excuse. Slavery in the north continued.
Excellent work on the subject: The Road to Disunion,
by Freehling.
Covers the complex master-slave relationships in the Border South and the Deep South;
the many attempts to deal with the slavery question, from Jefferson on;
the issues of “letting slavery die a natural death”,
to never ending it, to ending it immediately; etc.
They didn’t have the votes.
The addition of more states in the west where slavery wasn’t allowed is one of the things that led to the civil war, because each additional non slave state upset the balance in favor of outlawing slavery. Thus the need for things like the Missouri compromise.
Think of it this way. Today our government is nearly deadlocked on every major issue with republicans and democrats in basic equilibrium ... but what if California wanted to split into 3 state and give democrats 4 additional senators? and or add puerto rico as a state and give them 2 more? see? the balance is then upset.
That is what was happening as states were being added in the west.
Federal law didn’t trump State Law “after the Civil War”.
The Constitution is NOT altered by war. Only by amendments.
The war gave no new powers to the federal. Nor did it remove any from the States.
And while we are at it, the Proclamation was not a legal document. If one viewed the Confederacy as still part of the Union, as Lincoln did, the President did not have lawful power to free any slaves. If another country the same is true. Even the role as commander in chief offered him no such power because it is Congress that set rules for the military respecting captures on land or sea (which would include slaves).
I tend to compare slavery to abortion. Someday natural law will prevail in this case as it has slavery. Right now you have half the country plus the government in power (not Trump’s government, the old government, which has not yet ceded power to the Trump government) worshipping or dependent on abortion and all the power it brings.
Triple all of that when you consider that societal normalization of evil birth control is the root, and the seeming impossibility of getting rid of such a destructive cultural norm is obvious
Slavery must have been the same way
They would have created a problem with the surplus.