On Confederate Memorial Day, an honest annotation of the Mississippi Declaration of Secession

The Declaration of Secession was the result of a convention of the Mississippi Legislature in January of 1861. The convention adopted a formal Ordinance of Secession written by former Congressman Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar. While the ordinance served an official purpose, the declaration laid out the grievances Mississippi’s ruling class held against the federal government under the leadership of President-elect Abraham Lincoln...The convention really couldn’t be any more straightforward:

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery--the greatest material interest in the world.

You can’t just ignore or dismiss the real fears that people had at the time. The Blair family, whose patriarch had been a confidant and strong supporter of Andrew Jackson, was building the Republican Party in Missouri and Maryland. Germans in those states were also voting Republican. Politicians in South Carolina and other Deep South States looked at the Border States with alarm and could imagine Republicans building up their party in Western Virginia, Eastern Tennessee and Northern Alabama.

I don't see a realistic prospect at that time for the Republican Party to make real inroads with the Southern states. Their entire focus was as a Northern sectional party. They would have had to change their policies on just about everything to appeal to Southerners.

Slave uprisings were a major fear in the slave states: Gabriel’s rebellion, the German Coast uprising, Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner. Patrols for runaways were a major part of life, and they were vigilant about slave gatherings that they thought might spark a rebellion. Some slaveowners might believe that slaves were contented until abolitionists got to them, but they were terrified of abolitionists getting to them, even from a distance (hence the desire to keep slaves illiterate when possible).

of all those mentioned, Nat Turner's was the only one that was really violent. The others leaked or were squelched pretty easily. There were certainly concerns about runaway slaves. That was especially economically damaging because those most likely to flee tended to be the young and fit - precisely those slaves who were the most economically productive. I think runaways were a much bigger concern than slave rebellions though I'm sure people had fears of the latter.

In contrast, tariffs weren’t a major burden on most Southerners. If the slave states had stayed in the union, tariffs wouldn’t have gone up as high as they did. Lincoln would have lost control of Congress in the next election and tariffs would have gone down again.

The Tariff of Abominations was a major burden on everyone in the cotton producing states especially. You say tariffs would not have gone up as high as they did (53%). They didn't need to be that high to be economically devastating but they certainly would have risen to a level that would have crushed the South's economy. Given their larger population and thus more votes, the North would have every incentive to keep jacking tariff rates ever higher. After all, it lined their pockets. You say Lincoln would have lost control of Congress in the next election and Tariffs would have gone down again. I don't buy that at all. The money interests in the North had every reason to push for higher and higher tariffs. The North had a significantly larger population and thus more votes for Congress.

The militancy against the 1828 tariff was largely confined to South Carolina, the state where slave owning families were most powerful and had control of the government. Other states probably recognized that tariffs went up and down with the political climate. Later secessionists adopted talk about the tariff and fishing bounties because they were large slaveowners themselves, or because they wanted their revolt to be about more than worries about slavery. It wasn’t the main issue until after the war when no one who had supported the rebellion wanted to acknowledge the importance of slavey.

The only part of this that is even remotely accurate is that the most virulent opposition to the Tariff of Abominations came from South Carolina. South Carolina took the lead because they were the largest cotton producing state at the time. It was damaging to all of them and cotton production had soared since the 1820s so any future tariff like that was going to be quite devastating to all of them. Southerners complained bitterly about the tariff before and during the war - not just after. I've provided all kinds of quotes from Southern politicians and Newspapers before and during the war showing this. I've also provided quotes from Northern and Foreign sources backing up this assessment - ie that the North stood to gain hugely from higher tariffs and stood to lose far more if the South seceded while the South stood to gain hugely in that case. The claim that they only cared about slavery or that they only discussed other grievances after the fact is just so much Yankee propaganda.

The percentage of slaveowning families in the Deep South States was rather high, estimated at 49% in Mississippi and 46% in South Carolina, at 36.7% in the first seven seceding states and at around 25.3% in the last four states to secede. Those numbers aren’t exact, but even if one lowers them they still reflect the place of slavery in the slave states. Those who didn’t own slaves were often dependent on the slaveowners — and of course they were concerned about what a post-slavery future would look like.

We can consult the 1860 US Census. The percentage of the White population which owned slaves was indeed higher in the states of the Deep South which was more agricultural than in the Upper South which was well on the way to industrialization, but of the states that seceded, only 5.63% of the population owned slaves. My source for that is the 1860 US Census. I also dispute the claim that even people who did not have slaves were "dependent" on people who did.

“Slavery was strictly, a sectional interest” — sure, until Southern states tried to overturn the Missouri Compromise and even the Northwest Ordinance. Slaveowners brought their problems upon themselves. Eventually, unless more territory were annexed, slave states would become a minority. Wouldn’t we have hoped that would be the case?

They already were a minority. Slave owners did not create the problem all by themselves. Yankee Slave Traders had a huge hand in it. So did Bankers and Lawyers and Insurers and shipbuilders and Sailors and "Factors" (middlemen....people in wholesale and logistics we would call them today). They ALL had a big hand in slavery. They all profited from it.

The leading founders certainly wished for an eventual end to slavery. Slaveowners couldn’t face that so they engineered the situation that brought Northeast and Midwest together — just as their splitting the Democratic party created the situation where a Republican’s election would be inevitable.

They "engineered the situation" that brought the Northeast and Midwest together? No. The Republican Party did that. Southerners complained about it and saw slavery as a wedge issue Republicans and corporate interests were using to get Midwest farmers to align with Northeastern industrialists.

Lincoln’s first draft of his inaugural address didn’t mention the Corwin Amendment. The amendment hadn’t been passed by Congress then, but still, he didn’t see fit to mention it. Several historians have suggested that Seward, who had put a lot of effort into crafting the amendment and spiriting it through the Congress, prevailed upon Lincoln to the mention amendment in his inaugural address. I haven’t been able to find out if that is true, but historians who have been suspicious of Lincoln in this matter have made that suggestion when it would benefit their cause not to.

Neither side was fighting over slavery. They both said so numerous times in public and in private. Lincoln said it. Davis said it. The US Congress passed a resolution stating that they were not fighting over slavery. Slavery was an issue they could compromise on. The country's economic policy and who would wield the power of the federal government to benefit their economic interests was a long and bitter fight.

Republican votes had to be “whipped” for the Corwin Amendment because more Republicans voted against it than voted for it, but Lincoln wasn’t the one doing the whipping, nor did he bring the “whole party machinery” behind it for ratification. I asked you to provide evidence for your claims, and you haven’t.

There were LOTS of Republicans who were for it. I counted dozens and dozens who voted for it not to mention the fact that Republicans introduced it in both houses of congress. Lincoln was certainly engaged in using his influence to get Republican Congressmen to vote for it. I have provided ample evidence for what I've said on this subject numerous times on this board for years and years. You just don't want to acknowledge it.

Pushing the amendment would have broken the Republican Party in two. A substantial part of the “party machinery” didn’t and wouldn’t support the amendment, which was quickly overtaken by events and became a dead letter. The amendment wasn’t going to be ratified by the necessary 3/4ths of states.

The amendment was pushed. It did not break the Republican party in two. A substantial part of the party DID support it such that it got the necessary 2/3rds supermajority in each house of Congress and it got that AFTER the Southern Congressional delegation withdrew. It was ratified by multiple Northern states and Seward guaranteed he could get highly influential New York to ratify it if the Southern States agreed. Its extremely likely that enough states would have ratified it had the Southern states agreed to it as the price of them dropping independence.

FLT-bird: "The Confederate Constitution adopted on March 11, 9 days after the Corwin Amendment..."

February 7, 1861, secessionists in Montgomery, Alabama
began work on their new Confederate constitution.

February 7, and since for 90% of it, all they did was copy and paste the 1787 US Constitution, we have to believe that most of the serious work was completed in a day or two.
Then, it took a few weeks to discuss and print the final version for adoption on March 11.

Since December 1860, the US Congress had been dealing with many different proposals for "compromise" laws & amendments, hoping to stop further secessions.
On February 28, long after the new Confederate constitution was all but completed, Congressman Corwin proposed an amendment to the US Constitution which matched rather well the Confederate:

CSA Article I Section 9(4) "No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed."

FLT-bird: "...does explicitly use the word "slavery" while the US constitution tap dances around it while referring to it several times.
So what?"

It well illustrates my point, since even in 1861 the US Congress' proposed Corwin Amendment simply repeated a circumlocution from our 1787 Constitution:

proposed Corwin: "No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the 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."

Our Founders in 1787 well understood that slavery was wrong and disgraceful, should not be mentioned directly in their Constitution and so must be addressed through circumlocutions and euphemisms.
Such squeamishness was completely gone in secessionists' 1861 Montgomery constitution.

FLT-bird: "The US Constitution allowed for the importation of slaves for another 20 years after ratification.
The Confederate Constitution was stricter in its ban on the slave trade."

The 1861 Confederate Constitution allowed for a major exception, which is not found in the 1787 US Constitution.
I would not call that "stricter".

FLT-bird quoting BJK: "Unlike the 1861 Confederate constitution, the US 1787 Constitution does not prohibit outlawing slavery."

FLT-bird: "This only applied to the Confederate Government not to the state governments.
Once again, this was an explicit spelling out of the situation that existed in the US prior to secession.
The US Federal government also had no power provided to it in the US Constitution to force a state to abolish slavery."

So you claim here, but the Corwin Amendment was intended to directly address your point, thus rather strongly implying the absence of such a guarantee in our Founders' original 1787 Constitution -- at least as perceived by Southern slaveholders.

FLT-bird quoting BJK: "Now, to a normal person reading this, it seems pretty clear that the Confederate constitution outlaws abolishing slavery..."

FLT-bird: "Oh that seems far from clear.
The Confederate Constitution applied to the central government, not to the states.
That was the same understanding everyone had about the US Constitution.
It only contained restrictions on the power of the federal government."

There are several more points to be made here:

You are unwilling to draw this same distinction between Federal and state authority regarding the proposed Corwin Amendment, which you insist would have ended abolition forever in the USA.
This suggests the distinction between Federal and state authorities was not so well established in Confederate minds as you'd have us believe here.
But more important, the CSA constitution itself directly restricts states authority over slavery in Article IV -- Sections 2(1) and 3(3), such that, using Crazy Roger Taney's logic, it would be impossible for any Confederate state to pass laws even restricting slavery, much less abolishing it.
This means your implied claims, that the 1861 CSA Constitution was effectively "slavery neutral" for states, are pure undiluted hogwash.

FLT-bird: "Here are some other facts: Republicans introduced the Corwin Amendment to each house of Congress.
Plenty of Republicans voted for the passage of it - which it did pass with the necessary 2/3rds supermajority.
It could not have passed without substantial Republican support."

The key fact which you refuse to acknowledge, is that a majority of Republicans in Congress opposed Corwin, while 100% of Democrats supported it, and Democrat Pres. Buchanan signed it!
That should cause you to pause and reflect, but since it doesn't comply with your Lost Cause propaganda, you simply ignore the most important fact.

FLT-bird on Dred Scott: "The fact remains that this was the majority opinion of the SCOTUS, not just the opinion of Chief Justice Taney."

Sure, and as we've reviewed before, 100% of the seven concurrences (including Crazy Roger himself) were Democrats, and five of those seven were Southern Democrats, while the other two concurrences were Northern Doughfaced Democrats -- Nelson from NY and Grier from PA.
The two dissenters were Republicans -- Curtis from MA and McLean from Ohio.

So Dred Scott's concurrences in no way prove that Crazy Roger was sane, rather they prove that all Democrats were (and many remain) equally insane.

FLT-bird: "The fact also remains that there is no way you can show that no Founding Father would have agreed with the SCOTUS' opinion in Dred Scott.
None of the Founders said anything about the issue - unless you can provide us a quote from each of the Founding Fathers showing otherwise."

Of course we do have many quotes from Founders on related subjects, beginning with this one from Jefferson, Franklin and Adams:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..."

And there are many similar quotes from virtually every Founder, all of them strongly suggesting that Crazy Roger Taney, and all Southern Democrats, if not all Democrats, had, by 1857 turned into stark raving lunatics.

FLT-bird: "And as the SCOTUS ruled in Dred Scott, the US Federal government could not outlaw slavery in US territories either.
So, any such law was in fact unconstitutional in the US.
You are free to disagree with the SCOTUS but that was the law of the land.
Furthermore, there is no way you can prove that was not the Founding Fathers' intent."

No Northerner accepted Crazy Roger's Dred Scott opinions as legitimate, for one reason, as Lincoln said in 1858:

"We shall lie down pleasantly dreaming that the people of Missouri are on the verge of making their State free; and we shall awake to the reality, instead, that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave State."

It's a major factor in turning previously Democrat states of Pennsylvania, Indiana and Illinois to Republicans in 1860.

As for proving our Founders' intentions, I have proved those with one quote from the DOI above, and could add many more similar, if you still don't "get" it.

FLT-bird: "The Confederate Constitution did not treat slavery differently than how the US Constitution did prior to secession."

Only if you agree with the US 1787 Constitution, as grossly distorted by Crazy Roger Taney's 1857 lunatic opinions.

BroJoeK:February 7, and since for 90% of it, all they did was copy and paste the 1787 US Constitution, we have to believe that most of the serious work was completed in a day or two. Then, it took a few weeks to discuss and print the final version for adoption on March 11.

There is no evidence that the drafters of the Corwin Amendment were influenced by the Confederate Constitution. The Corwin Amendment came first after all.

BroJoeK: Since December 1860, the US Congress had been dealing with many different proposals for "compromise" laws & amendments, hoping to stop further secessions. On February 28, long after the new Confederate constitution was all but completed, Congressman Corwin proposed an amendment to the US Constitution which matched rather well the Confederate: CSA Article I Section 9(4) "No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed."

You claim the Confederate Constitution was "all but completed" yet you have no evidence for this. The Corwin Amendment came out first. That article you cite in the Confederate Constitution was just the Corwin Amendment...and as you have said before, the Corwin Amendment was just an explicit spelling out of what already existed. The US Federal government could not bad slavery in a state. Nothing in the US Constitution gave it the power to do so.

BroJoeK: It well illustrates my point, since even in 1861 the US Congress' proposed Corwin Amendment simply repeated a circumlocution from our 1787 Constitution:

The Confederate Constitution was honest in saying "slave/slavery" while the US Constitution provided all the same protections, it just didn't use the word.

BroJoeK:Our Founders in 1787 well understood that slavery was wrong and disgraceful, should not be mentioned directly in their Constitution and so must be addressed through circumlocutions and euphemisms. Such squeamishness was completely gone in secessionists' 1861 Montgomery constitution.

The Founding Fathers were certainly embarrassed by how hypocritical it was in light of the rhetoric in the Declaration of Independence. Yet they were perfectly willing to protect slavery in the US Constitution. The only difference in the Confederate Constitution was it was more honest. They actually said the word "slave". They otherwise protected it no more than the Founding Fathers had in the US Constitution.

BroJoeK: "The 1861 Confederate Constitution allowed for a major exception, which is not found in the 1787 US Constitution. I would not call that "stricter".

What was that exception? OH! I see. It was that slaves could still be traded between those US States that still allowed slavery and Confederate states. In other words, they left the situation exactly as it had been prior to secession. They did not allow the importation of vast quantities of slaves from Africa like the US Constitution allowed for 20 more years. I would call that stricter.

BroJoeK: "So you claim here, but the Corwin Amendment was intended to directly address your point, thus rather strongly implying the absence of such a guarantee in our Founders' original 1787 Constitution -- at least as perceived by Southern slaveholders.

If anyone thought the federal government could force a state to abolish slavery, Lincoln sure answered that one. He expressly said the federal government had no such power and he said it repeatedly.

“There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that— I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had made this and many similar declarations and had never recanted them.” Abraham Lincoln

BroJoeK: You are unwilling to draw this same distinction between Federal and state authority regarding the proposed Corwin Amendment, which you insist would have ended abolition forever in the USA. This suggests the distinction between Federal and state authorities was not so well established in Confederate minds as you'd have us believe here.

Again, if that distinction were not so clear, Lincoln certainly cleared that up. See above quote.

BroJoeK: But more important, the CSA constitution itself directly restricts states authority over slavery in Article IV -- Sections 2(1) and 3(3), such that, using Crazy Roger Taney's logic, it would be impossible for any Confederate state to pass laws even restricting slavery, much less abolishing it.

No. This only pertained to a right of transit as existed in the US prior to secession. A Confederate state could not bar transit. It could certainly abolish slavery if it wished. A proposal that states that had already banned slavery not be admitted to the CSA was voted down in Montgomery during the Confederate constitutional convention.

BroJoeK: This means your implied claims, that the 1861 CSA Constitution was effectively "slavery neutral" for states, are pure undiluted hogwash.

No it doesn't. It proves that your claims are pure undiluted hogwash.

BroJoeK; The key fact which you refuse to acknowledge, is that a majority of Republicans in Congress opposed Corwin, while 100% of Democrats supported it, and Democrat Pres. Buchanan signed it! That should cause you to pause and reflect, but since it doesn't comply with your Lost Cause propaganda, you simply ignore the most important fact.

That's great. What you refuse to acknowledge is that Republicans introduced it to each house of Congress. It could only have passed Congress with the necessary 2/3rds supermajority with substantial Republican support, and that the Republican leadership lobbied for state ratification and got several states to in fact ratify it. Of course admitting that would contradict your PC Revisionist propaganda so you refuse to admit those inconvenient facts.

BroJoeK: Sure, and as we've reviewed before, 100% of the seven concurrences (including Crazy Roger himself) were Democrats, and five of those seven were Southern Democrats, while the other two concurrences were Northern Doughfaced Democrats -- Nelson from NY and Grier from PA. The two dissenters were Republicans -- Curtis from MA and McLean from Ohio. So Dred Scott's concurrences in no way prove that Crazy Roger was sane, rather they prove that all Democrats were (and many remain) equally insane.

Your constant namecalling aside, what this decision proves is that it was a majority opinion of the SCOTUS and as such was binding law in the US. Full Stop.

BroJoeK; None of the Founders said anything about the issue - unless you can provide us a quote from each of the Founding Fathers showing otherwise."

You said none would agree to the ruling. It is incumbent upon you to provide evidence - not incumbent upon me to provide counter evidence. You made the claim after all.

BroJoeK: Of course we do have many quotes from Founders on related subjects, beginning with this one from Jefferson, Franklin and Adams: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..." And there are many similar quotes from virtually every Founder, all of them strongly suggesting that Crazy Roger Taney, and all Southern Democrats, if not all Democrats, had, by 1857 turned into stark raving lunatics.

Yet many of those same Founding Fathers were themselves slaveowner and they incorporated protections for slavery in the US Constitution. That strongly suggests they would have agreed with the majority opinion of the SCOTUS in Dred Scott.

BroJoeK: No Northerner accepted Crazy Roger's Dred Scott opinions as legitimate, for one reason, as Lincoln said in 1858: "We shall lie down pleasantly dreaming that the people of Missouri are on the verge of making their State free; and we shall awake to the reality, instead, that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave State." It's a major factor in turning previously Democrat states of Pennsylvania, Indiana and Illinois to Republicans in 1860.

Not all Northerners were Abolitionists. In fact, Abolitionists were a tiny minority prior to the war. Their candidates could not get more than single digit percentages of the vote. I have no doubt many were pissed because "the other team" won that round in the Supreme Court and that burned their asses just like it does today when the SCOTUS comes down on one side or the other of a political issue. I suspect Northerners were far more pissed about that than they were committed to abolition. All the evidence is, they overwhelmingly were not abolitionists.

BroJoeK: As for proving our Founders' intentions, I have proved those with one quote from the DOI above, and could add many more similar, if you still don't "get" it.

And I have proven that many of them were slave owners or as in Franklin's case were perfectly happy to profit from slavery and that they included protections of slavery in the US Constitution....if you still don't "get" it.

BroJoeK: Only if you agree with the US 1787 Constitution, as grossly distorted by Crazy Roger Taney's 1857 lunatic opinions.

No matter how much you splutter and spew venom at Taney, that was the majority opinion of the SCOTUS and as such was the supreme law of the land.

FLT-bird: "Hmm.
I don't see the words "at pleasure".
I do see consent of the governed and whenever the people of a state decide that the government becomes destructive of these ends (meaning consent) it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it.
So the power to decide what is "destructive of these ends" rests with the people of each state according to the Declaration of Independence.
"at pleasure" is a term you have invented which is nowhere to be found in the Declaration of Independence."

Madison's term, "at pleasure" is not in the DOI because there was nothing "at pleasure" about it!
Instead, our Founders used much stronger words:

"When... it becomes necessary..." -- "necessary", is not "at pleasure".
"...declare the causes which impel them to the separation." -- "impel", is not "at pleasure".
"...whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends..." -- "destructive", not "inconvenient" or "unpleasant", to be discarded "at pleasure".
"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes..." -- "light and transient causes", are synonymous with "at pleasure", and should not be used to change governments.
"... But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government..." -- "abuses and usurpations", "reduce them under absolute Despotism", these are the opposites of "at pleasure" reasons.
"... such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government..." -- again, "necessity" is the opposite of "at pleasure".
"...history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States..." -- "injuries and usurpations", "absolute Tyranny", these are the opposites of "at pleasure" secessions.
"...In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.
A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people." -- "Oppressions", "repeated injuries" and "define a Tyrant" are opposites of "at pleasure".
"...We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends" -- yet again, "necessity" is the opposite of "at pleasure".

By the way, we have discussed Madison's views on "at pleasure" disunion, so we might well also mention Jefferson's views on secession (which he calls "scission"), expressed in a June 4 1798 letter to John Taylor:

"...perhaps this party division is necessary to induce each to watch & debate to the people the proceedings of the other. but if on a temporary superiority of the one party, the other is to resort to a scission of the union, no federal government can ever exist."

FLT-bird: "Also it is laughable to claim the 1860-61 secessionists were not inheritors of the 1776 secessionists original intentions.
Of course they were.
They were the children and grandchildren of those 1776 secessionists."

But you clearly don't yet grasp the essential fact about 1860 Fire Eater secessionists, which is that they were Democrats, and Democrats, by definition are devotees to, indeed worshippers of, the Big Lie, and in 1861, one Democrat Big Lie was that they accurately represented our Founders' original intentions.

But the truth is that Democrats didn't then, don't now and never reliably have.
And the reason is as obvious as it is simple -- the first Democrats' original supporters were anti-Federalists who opposed ratification of the US Constitution in 1788.
Their successors have also opposed it, by whatever means they believed necessary, ever since.

BroJoeK: "at pleasure" is a term you have invented which is nowhere to be found in the Declaration of Independence." Madison's term, "at pleasure" is not in the DOI because there was nothing "at pleasure" about it! Instead, our Founders used much stronger words: "When... it becomes necessary..." -- "necessary", is not "at pleasure". "...declare the causes which impel them to the separation." -- "impel", is not "at pleasure". "...whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends..." -- "destructive", not "inconvenient" or "unpleasant", to be discarded "at pleasure". "Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes..." -- "light and transient causes", are synonymous with "at pleasure", and should not be used to change governments. "... But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government..." -- "abuses and usurpations", "reduce them under absolute Despotism", these are the opposites of "at pleasure" reasons. "... such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government..." -- again, "necessity" is the opposite of "at pleasure". "...history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States..." -- "injuries and usurpations", "absolute Tyranny", these are the opposites of "at pleasure" secessions. "...In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people." -- "Oppressions", "repeated injuries" and "define a Tyrant" are opposites of "at pleasure". "...We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends" -- yet again, "necessity" is the opposite of "at pleasure". By the way, we have discussed Madison's views on "at pleasure" disunion, so we might well also mention Jefferson's views on secession (which he calls "scission"), expressed in a June 4 1798 letter to John Taylor: "...perhaps this party division is necessary to induce each to watch & debate to the people the proceedings of the other. but if on a temporary superiority of the one party, the other is to resort to a scission of the union, no federal government can ever exist."

Oh. Madison's letter. Did he publish this letter before ratification? Did he include this in the Federalist Papers? Did he say this at the time the constitution was ratified by the sovereign states? No? Then it is just one man's opinion after the fact. It is NOT evidence as to what the states agreed to at the time.

Nowhere in the DOI or the Federalist papers or the US Constitution does it say a state may not secede or that it requires a permission slip from anybody else to secede.

BroJoeK: "But you clearly don't yet grasp the essential fact about 1860 Fire Eater secessionists, which is that they were Democrats, and Democrats, by definition are devotees to, indeed worshippers of, the Big Lie, and in 1861, one Democrat Big Lie was that they accurately represented our Founders' original intentions.

more irrationality and namecalling from you. The Democrat party in the mid 19th century is radically different from the Democrat party today. Just as the Republican party today of today is becoming quite different from the Republican party of 20 years ago. Parties change over time just as societies and the values they hold change over time. Deal with it.

BroJoeK: But the truth is that Democrats didn't then, don't now and never reliably have. And the reason is as obvious as it is simple -- the first Democrats' original supporters were anti-Federalists who opposed ratification of the US Constitution in 1788. Their successors have also opposed it, by whatever means they believed necessary, ever since.

Antifederalists - like George Mason and Patrick Henry opposed the Constitution for a variety of reasons. It lacked a bill of rights. It lacked any restrictions at all on the "general welfare". They knew better than to trust government and knew it would - like any government - always seek to usurp ever more power for itself.

FLT-bird: "There is no evidence that the drafters of the Corwin Amendment were influenced by the Confederate Constitution.
The Corwin Amendment came first after all."

So, as we get deeper into the historical weeds here, the first thing to understand is that there were actually two new CSA constitutions:

Provisional Constitution, started February 5, 1861, adopted on February 8, 1861 -- three days to "copy and paste" a provisional constitution.
Permanent Constitution, started on February 28, 1861, adopted on March 11, 1861 -- 12 days to add some minor changes to the provisional constitution.

How did these two differ?
Regarding slavery, there were more specific guarantees of slavery spelled out in the March 11 permanent constitution than had been in the February 8 provisional version.
The key additions were:

Mississippi Sen. Jefferson Davis:

Article I Section 9(4) "No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed."[13]
Article IV Section 2(1) "The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired."[31]
Article IV Section 3(3): "In all such territory, the institution of negro slavery as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress, and by the territorial government: and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories, shall have the right to take to such territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the states or territories of the Confederate states."[32]

These new additions exactly match proposals made by Mississippi's Democrat Senator Davis in Congress on February 2, 1860, (1860, not 1861).

So, these ideas were well known in Washington, and only the first of them was accepted by Crittenden in December 1860 and later by Corwin in March 1861.
In other words: in December 1860, when Congress debated proposals to save the Union, all three of Sen. Davis' February 1860 proposals were on the table, but only the first was accepted by Republicans in the Crittenden Compromise and later in the proposed Corwin Amendment.

Had Republicans been willing to accept all three of Davis' February 1860 slavery proposals, according to Davis himself, Mississippi would have no need to secede in 1861.

To be clear, these "compromises" all involved slavery, none of them had anything to do with those other issues our Lost Causers love to point at -- especially tariffs, or Federal infrastructure spending, or "bounties" for "fishing smacks", or the depredations of "Indian Savages" and "Mexican banditti".

FLT-bird: "You claim the Confederate Constitution was "all but completed" yet you have no evidence for this.
The Corwin Amendment came out first.
That article you cite in the Confederate Constitution was just the Corwin Amendment...and as you have said before, the Corwin Amendment was just an explicit spelling out of what already existed.
The US Federal government could not bad slavery in a state.
Nothing in the US Constitution gave it the power to do so."

I'm saying only what's obviously true -- that since 90% of the new CSA constitution was just a "copy and paste" of the 1787 US Constitution, it took only three days to write the first provisional constitution, then eight more days to convert that to the permanent CSA constitution adopted on March 11.
This is the historical timeline in Montgomery, Alabama:

February 4, 1861 -- The Provisional Congress of the Confederate States first met in Montgomery, Alabama.
February 5, 1861 -- The CSA Constitutional Convention first met in Montgomery, Alabama.
February 8, 1861 -- The CSA Congress adopted a provisional constitution.
February 9, 1861 -- The CSA Constitutional Convention elected Jefferson Davis Provisional President and Alexander H. Stephens the Provisional Vice President.
February 11 -- Stephens took office.
February 18 -- Davis took office, First Inaugural Address.
February 28 -- CSA permanent Constitutional Convention started.
March 11, 1861, the permanent CSA Constitution adopted.[1]

Again, point is, there were two CSA constitutions -- the provisional adopted on February 8 and the permanent on March 11.
Both were mostly "cut and paste" versions of the 1787 US Constitution, but there were differences, including more explicit language protecting slavery in the permanent CSA constitution than had been in the previous provisional constitution.
This new pro-slavery language came from Mississippi Sen. Davis' February 2, 1860 proposals in Congress.

There is no reason for us to think the delegates in Montgomery kept their proceedings secret or that their provisional and permanent constitutions were not fully known by others (i.e., northerners), at the time.

FLT-bird: "The Founding Fathers were certainly embarrassed by how hypocritical it was in light of the rhetoric in the Declaration of Independence.
Yet they were perfectly willing to protect slavery in the US Constitution.
The only difference in the Confederate Constitution was it was more honest.
They actually said the word "slave".
They otherwise protected it no more than the Founding Fathers had in the US Constitution."

One difference is 1860 Confederates were unashamed of what our 1787 Founders considered shameful.

There were three other differences worth mentioning, only one of which was addressed by either Crittenden or Corwin:

Kentucky Sen. Crittenden:

The 1861 CSA constitution explicitly guarantees no "law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed."
This is the key guaranteed proposed by Sen. Davis in February 1860 and addressed by both Crittenden in December 1860 and Corwin in March 1861.
However, no such guarantee was even imagined by our Founders in 1787.
The 1861 CSA constitution explicitly guarantees slaveholders, "...the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired."
This is Crazy Roger's 1857 Dred Scott ruling, and also Sen. Davis' February 1860 proposal, but it's nowhere to be found in our Founders' 1787 Constitution, and was rejected by Republicans in December 1860.
The 1861 CSA constitution explicitly guarantees slavery in Confederate territories: "In all such territory, the institution of negro slavery as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress, and by the territorial government: and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories, shall have the right to take to such territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the states or territories of the Confederate states."
This also is Crazy Roger's 1857 Dred Scott ruling, also in Sen. Davis' February 1860 proposals, also nowhere to be found in our Founders' 1787 US Constitution, and also rejected by Republicans in December 1860.

FLT-bird: "It was that slaves could still be traded between those US States that still allowed slavery and Confederate states.
In other words, they left the situation exactly as it had been prior to secession."

The CSA constitutional ban on slave importations was utterly meaningless if it did not include their biggest, indeed only, source of imported slaves, the USA.

FLT-bird: "If anyone thought the federal government could force a state to abolish slavery, Lincoln sure answered that one.
He expressly said the federal government had no such power and he said it repeatedly."

And yet.. and yet... that is precisely the issue addressed by Mississippi Sen. Davis in February 1860, by Crittenden in December 1860, by the new CSA constitution in February 1861 and by Corwin in March 1861.
So, obviously, the matter was not as firmly settled as you'd like us all to believe today.

FLT-bird: "This only pertained to a right of transit as existed in the US prior to secession.
A Confederate state could not bar transit.
It could certainly abolish slavery if it wished.
A proposal that states that had already banned slavery not be admitted to the CSA was voted down in Montgomery during the Confederate constitutional convention."

Again, using Crazy Roger "logic", slaveholders were now constitutionally guaranteed an unlimited "right of sojourn" in any Confederate state, with their slaves, thus rendering any state abolition laws effectively mute.

FLT-bird on Corwin: "What you refuse to acknowledge is that Republicans introduced it to each house of Congress.
It could only have passed Congress with the necessary 2/3rds supermajority with substantial Republican support..."

Sure, but the majority of Republicans opposed Corwin, while Democrats voted unanimously for it, and that is worth noticing, imho.

FLT-bird on Dred Scott: "Your constant namecalling aside, what this decision proves is that it was a majority opinion of the SCOTUS and as such was binding law in the US.
Full Stop."

Right, the unanimous concurrences of five lunatic Southern Democrat justices, joined by two Doughfaced Northern Democrats and opposed by two Northern Republican justices.
So there's no doubt that the other Democrats were just as crazy as Crazy Roger Taney.
Democrats have always been crazy.
Crazy is not a failure of Democrats, it's their basic feature.

FLT-bird: "You said none would agree to the ruling.
It is incumbent upon you to provide evidence - not incumbent upon me to provide counter evidence.
You made the claim after all."

I've said exactly what is factual -- that there's no evidence any 1787 Founder supported any of Crazy Roger's 1857 Dred Scott rulings.
And there are tons of evidence to the contrary, beginning with my quote from their 1776 Declaration of Independence, you the part about "all men are created equal".

FLT-bird: "Yet many of those same Founding Fathers were themselves slaveowner and they incorporated protections for slavery in the US Constitution.
That strongly suggests they would have agreed with the majority opinion of the SCOTUS in Dred Scott."

Every Founder at some point expressed a desire for, or acquiescence in, efforts to restrict or abolish slavery, where that was possible.
This strongly suggests they would have opposed Crazy Roger's lunatic Dred Scott opinions.

BROJOEK: So, as we get deeper into the historical weeds here, the first thing to understand is that there were actually two new CSA constitutions: Provisional Constitution, started February 5, 1861, adopted on February 8, 1861 -- three days to "copy and paste" a provisional constitution. Permanent Constitution, started on February 28, 1861, adopted on March 11, 1861 -- 12 days to add some minor changes to the provisional constitution. How did these two differ? Regarding slavery, there were more specific guarantees of slavery spelled out in the March 11 permanent constitution than had been in the February 8 provisional version. The key additions were: Mississippi Sen. Jefferson Davis: Had Republicans been willing to accept all three of Davis' February 1860 slavery proposals, according to Davis himself, Mississippi would have no need to secede in 1861.

Yet Mississippi could have had all of them since a right of transit was the law in the US and the Corwin Amendment addressed the rest and yet Mississippi along with the other 6 original seceding states turned this offer down. Hmmm. That must not have been their big concern then.

Oh, and discussions that would culminate in the Corwin Amendment started in late 1860.

BroJoeK: To be clear, these "compromises" all involved slavery, none of them had anything to do with those other issues our Lost Causers love to point at -- especially tariffs, or Federal infrastructure spending, or "bounties" for "fishing smacks", or the depredations of "Indian Savages" and "Mexican banditti".

Correct! And the Corwin Amendment was rejected by the original 7 seceding states.

BroJoeK: I'm saying only what's obviously true -- that since 90% of the new CSA constitution was just a "copy and paste" of the 1787 US Constitution, it took only three days to write the first provisional constitution, then eight more days to convert that to the permanent CSA constitution adopted on March 11. There is no reason for us to think the delegates in Montgomery kept their proceedings secret or that their provisional and permanent constitutions were not fully known by others (i.e., northerners), at the time.

Just as there is no reason for us to think that Northerners kept their discussions which began in late 1860 and culminated in the Corwin Amendment secret and that they were not fully known by others (ie. Southerners) at the time.

BROJOEK: One difference is 1860 Confederates were unashamed of what our 1787 Founders considered shameful.

They were simply more honest.

BROJOEK: There were three other differences worth mentioning, only one of which was addressed by either Crittenden or Corwin: Kentucky Sen. Crittenden: The 1861 CSA constitution explicitly guarantees no "law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed." This is the key guaranteed proposed by Sen. Davis in February 1860 and addressed by both Crittenden in December 1860 and Corwin in March 1861. However, no such guarantee was even imagined by our Founders in 1787.

The Southern Slaveholders who wrote the 1787 Constitution did not think they would need any such provision and could not imagine that it would even be an issue. The sovereign states did not delegate any such power to the newly proposed federal government and they never thought anybody would even suggest the federal government could directly interfere in states like that.

BROJOEK: The 1861 CSA constitution explicitly guarantees slaveholders, "...the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired." This is Crazy Roger's 1857 Dred Scott ruling, and also Sen. Davis' February 1860 proposal, but it's nowhere to be found in our Founders' 1787 Constitution, and was rejected by Republicans in December 1860.

That was the law in the US at the time as per the majority opinion of the US Supreme Court. The US Constitution was silent on the issue though all of the 13 original states had slavery.

BROJOEK: The 1861 CSA constitution explicitly guarantees slavery in Confederate territories: "In all such territory, the institution of negro slavery as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress, and by the territorial government: and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories, shall have the right to take to such territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the states or territories of the Confederate states." This also is Crazy Roger's 1857 Dred Scott ruling, also in Sen. Davis' February 1860 proposals, also nowhere to be found in our Founders' 1787 US Constitution, and also rejected by Republicans in December 1860.

See above. This was the state of the law in the US as per the majority opinion of the US Supreme Court. The US Constitution is silent on the issue. Of course, ALL of the original 13 states had slavery when the US Constitution was written by the slave owning Southerners who wrote it. There is nothing about denying any citizen his property rights in any US territory.

BROJOEK: The CSA constitutional ban on slave importations was utterly meaningless if it did not include their biggest, indeed only, source of imported slaves, the USA.

Au Contraire. The African Slave Trade was strictly forbidden right from the start. Also forbidden was importing any of the millions of slaves from the Caribbean or Brazil. The ban on the foreign slave trade was quite meaningful and was something the US Constitution did not do.

BROJOEK: And yet.. and yet... that is precisely the issue addressed by Mississippi Sen. Davis in February 1860, by Crittenden in December 1860, by the new CSA constitution in February 1861 and by Corwin in March 1861. So, obviously, the matter was not as firmly settled as you'd like us all to believe today.

Seems pretty clear to me the matter was settled. Lincoln assured everyone the matter was settled. The Corwin Amendment was meant to explicitly codify that which pretty much everyone I've seen at the time considered settled. After all, there were very very few Abolitionists at the time and they were considered to be extremists by everyone else.

BROJOEK: Again, using Crazy Roger "logic", slaveholders were now constitutionally guaranteed an unlimited "right of sojourn" in any Confederate state, with their slaves, thus rendering any state abolition laws effectively mute.

That is a gross mischaracterization. They had a right of transit. They could not stay for any extended period of time with their slaves. They could not settle there with their slaves. They had a right to pass through. That is all that the majority of the US Supreme Court ruled they had and that is all they had under the Confederate Constitution.

BROJOEK: Sure, but the majority of Republicans opposed Corwin, while Democrats voted unanimously for it, and that is worth noticing, imho.

Its also worth noticing that Republicans introduced it, many Republicans voted for it, Lincoln supported it and used his influence to get it ratified in multiple Northern states.

BROJOEK: Right, the unanimous concurrences of five lunatic Southern Democrat justices, joined by two Doughfaced Northern Democrats and opposed by two Northern Republican justices. So there's no doubt that the other Democrats were just as crazy as Crazy Roger Taney. Democrats have always been crazy. Crazy is not a failure of Democrats, it's their basic feature.

All you've got here is namecalling. The majority of the US Supreme Court issued their ruling and as such it was the law of the land.

BROJOEK: I've said exactly what is factual -- that there's no evidence any 1787 Founder supported any of Crazy Roger's 1857 Dred Scott rulings. And there are tons of evidence to the contrary, beginning with my quote from their 1776 Declaration of Independence, you the part about "all men are created equal".

On the contrary, there is no evidence to support the claim that they did not agree with the majority opinion of the Supreme Court in regards to the Dred Scott ruling. All of the original 13 states had slavery in 1787. The Southerner who drafted much of the US Constitution owned slaves. The Declaration of Independence was written by a Southerner who owned slaves. The Father of his country George Washington was a Southerner who owned slaves. Hell, even the two leading anti Federalists, George Mason and Patrick Henry were Southerners who owned slaves.

Slavery and owning slaves weren't seen as being any big deal in 1787 and certainly not the moral issue people would see it as today. Given all these people were slave owners and all of the original 13 states had slavery its hardly a stretch to think they would have agreed that a US Citizen could go into any US territory with his property - that includes his slaves.

BROJOEK: Every Founder at some point expressed a desire for, or acquiescence in, efforts to restrict or abolish slavery, where that was possible. This strongly suggests they would have opposed Crazy Roger's lunatic Dred Scott opinions.

It was a hope in some vague murky future that slavery would wither away. As I've pointed out, pretty much all the key players owned slaves and even several who didn't were highly involved in slavery. For example, John Hancock was the largest slave trader in New England. Ben Franklin had owned a slave when he was younger. He disposed of his slave and developed a personal distaste for slavery in his later years but he was not at all averse to making money from slaveowners buying notices in his papers for bounties on their escaped slaves.

Even Massachusetts Lawyer John Adams who was not involved in the slave trade and who did not own any slaves quite vigorously pressed the British for the return of Americans' slaves who had run away and enlisted in the British Army during the war of secession from the British Empire. The British PM turned this demand down flat. The King sent the PM a note congratulating him on refusing this demand from Adams. Bet you don't see that embarrassing little episode in any text book in one of the government schools!

The point is slavery just wasn't seen as being a big deal in 1787. It was a matter that could be compromised on and which the Founding Fathers assumed would take care of itself in time.

FLT-bird: "Oh, and discussions that would culminate in the Corwin Amendment started in late 1860."

Naw, the US had debated slavery related issues since 1776.

The specific proposal which eventually ended up as Corwin began with Mississippi's Democrat Sen. Jefferson Davis's February 2, 1860 proposals in Congress.
Some of Davis' proposals found their way into the 1860 Southern Democrat (Breckenridge) party platform, and then all of them reemerged in the December 1860 debates over Crittenden's Compromise proposals.

In the end, Sen. Davis's insistence -- that Congress had no authority to abolish slavery within states -- made its way into both the new CSA Constitution and the proposed US Corwin Amendment.
Davis's other proposals regarding slavery in territories and an alleged slaveholders' "right of soujourn" were rejected by Republicans in December 1860, hence secession of Mississippi (#2 to secede) and other Deep South states.

FLT-bird: "Correct! And the Corwin Amendment was rejected by the original 7 seceding states."

Naw... the Corwin Amendment was eagerly accepted and adopted by the Montgomery, Alabama Constitutional Convention into their new CSA constitution, along with Jefferson Davis's other proposals to Congress from February 2, 1860.
Confederates loved Corwin and copied and pasted it into their Montgomery constitution:

Article I Section 9(4) "No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed."

FLT-bird regarding CSA constitution's use of words like "slave": "They were simply more ~~honest~~ shameless."

Fixed it.

FLT-bird: "The Southern Slaveholders who wrote the 1787 Constitution did not think they would need any such provision and could not imagine that it would even be an issue.
The sovereign states did not delegate any such power to the newly proposed federal government and they never thought anybody would even suggest the federal government could directly interfere in states like that."

So far as I can tell, that was exactly Abraham Lincoln's opinion in 1860.
Lincoln then saw no need for an amendment along lines of Sen. Davis's February 1860 proposal, eventually adopted in Corwin in March 1861.
As far as Lincoln was concerned, such an amendment was unnecessary, but, if it helped keep the Union together, he did not oppose it.

FLT-bird on alleged slaveholders' "right of sojourn": "That was the law in the US at the time as per the majority opinion of the US Supreme Court.
The US Constitution was silent on the issue though all of the 13 original states had slavery."

Just as the 1787 US Constitution granted no authority to Federal government to abolish slavery in states, it also granted Federal government no authority to limit states from restricting and abolishing slavery themselves -- suggestions to the contrary from Crazy Roger Taney's 1857 Dred Scott ruling notwithstanding.

FLT-bird: "The ban on the foreign slave trade was quite meaningful and was something the US Constitution did not do."

And yet... and yet... the fact remains that the Confederacy's largest source for imported slaves would be the USA, and those imports were not outlawed.
Therefore, the CSA's constitutional provision is meaningless eyewash.

FLT-bird: "That is a gross mischaracterization.
They had a right of transit.
They could not stay for any extended period of time with their slaves.
They could not settle there with their slaves.
They had a right to pass through.
That is all that the majority of the US Supreme Court ruled they had and that is all they had under the Confederate Constitution."

And yet... and yet... Crazy Roger placed no time limit on his new-found "slaveholders' right of sojourn".
Dred Scott himself had lived for many years in free states and territories, and yet... and yet... in Crazy Rogers' eyes that was not enough to make poor Dred Scott a free man, much less a full US citizen.
Why is that, you might ask?

Answer: because Crazy Roger was a raging Democrat lunatic, and for no other conceivable reason.

FLT-bird: "Its also worth noticing that Republicans introduced it, many Republicans voted for it, Lincoln supported it and used his influence to get it ratified in multiple Northern states."

Your constant references to alleged historian Doris Kerns Goodwin notwithstanding, there is no actual evidence for Lincoln's direct involvement with Corwin either in Congress or in states.

FLT-bird: "All you've got here is namecalling.
The ~~majority~~ unanimous ravings of Southern Democrat lunatics of the US Supreme Court issued their ruling and as such it was the highly disputed law of the land."

Fixed it.
You can easily credit Crazy Roger with electing Republican majorities to Congress and Lincoln as president, in response to Crazy's Dred Scott opinion.

Crazy Roger's insane SCOTUS:

FLT-bird: "Slavery and owning slaves weren't seen as being any big deal in 1787 and certainly not the moral issue people would see it as today.
Given all these people were slave owners and all of the original 13 states had slavery its hardly a stretch to think they would have agreed that a US Citizen could go into any US territory with his property - that includes his slaves."

Believe me, I do understand why you want to minimize Crazy Roger's raging insanities, and make him appear like any other normal human being, and therefore you ignore his worst lunacies and focus on just what might possibly be defended.
And the reasons are obvious -- in 1857 Crazy Roger was not alone in his opinions and they were shared widely by slaveholders and slavery defenders throughout the South.

They were all just as crazy as Roger was.
Do I need to list out for you all the craziness Democrats like Crazy Roger inflicted on the USA in 1857?

FLT-bird on 1787 Founders: "It was a hope in some vague murky future that slavery would wither away. "

Nooooo... it was far more than a "vague hope" because our Founders were willing to take legal actions to restrict and abolish slavery wherever possible, a prime example being abolition of slavery in the Old Northwest Territories in 1787.
In 1787 the Old Northwest Territories were an area 50% larger than the eventual borders of the six Southern States combined.

Further, by 1787, abolition was already the law in Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Pennsylvania -- a total of 65% of all Northern state area.
So, if we add the 65% of Northern States area plus the Northwest Territories, then we see that in 1787, almost exactly half of the entirety of US square miles were under laws abolishing slavery -- that was vastly more than a "vague hope".

Bottom line: in 1787 our Founders held abolition as far more than a "vague hope" for the future.
They had already acted to legally abolish slavery in half of all US land area.

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