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There was however something in the Confederate Constitution to prevent states abolishing slavery, they knew what was important to them.

There was? What was that something? Cite it. Oh by the way......

While the CSA 1.9 prohibits the General government legislating against slavery, CSA Article 1.10 does not mention slavery in any regard. It’s entirely committed to ex post facto and other non-slavery related issues, e.g., excessive bail, entering treaties, laying duties on tonnage and so forth.

So proponents claiming CSA Article 1.9 stops the States from becoming Free States is incorrect. It is solely a prohibition against the General government. If the CSA Founders meant to stop the States from becoming Free States, they would have had to provide that prohibition in Article 1.10.

The Confederacy’s addition to 1.9 denying power to the General government to disestablish the institution of slavery was done so the prohibition would be explicit. Slavery was already implicitly outside the General government’s power when the CSA Founders abolished ‘dual sovereignty’. Slavery, as with any State creation, resided in the sovereignty of their respective peoples.

So not only was there nothing in the Confederate Constitution which would have prevented any Confederate state from abolishing slavery, there was also nothing in the Confederate Constitution which would prevent any state that had already abolished slavery from joining the Confederacy.

". . . delegates from the Deep South met in Montgomery, Alabama, on February 4 [1861] to establish the Confederate States of America. The convention acted as a provisional government while at the same time drafting a permanent constitution. . . . Voted down were proposals to reopen the Atlantic slave trade . . . and to prohibit the admission of free states to the new Confederacy. . . .

"The resulting constitution was surprisingly similar to that of the United States. Most of the differences merely spelled out traditional southern interpretations of the federal charter. . . .

". . . it was clear from the actions of the Montgomery convention that the goal of the new converts to secessionism was not to establish a slaveholders' reactionary utopia. What they really wanted was to recreate the Union as it had been before the rise of the new Republican Party, and they opted for secession only when it seemed clear that separation was the only way to achieve their aim. The decision to allow free states to join the Confederacy reflected a hope that much of the old Union could be reconstituted under southern direction." (Robert A. Divine, T. H. Bren, George Fredrickson, and R. Hal Williams, America Past and Present, Fifth Edition, New York: Longman, 1998, pp. 444-445, emphasis added)

it was clear from the actions of the Montgomery convention that the goal of the new converts to secessionism was not to establish a slaveholders' reactionary utopia.

The key words would be "the new converts," not the whole of the Confederate constitutional convention or government. Whether "new converts" is more accurate than "moderates" or "cooperationists" is another matter, but they were latecomers to the secessionist cause, in contrast to those who had been for secession for some time and who had originally sparked secession in the Deep South.

George Rable writes in "The Confederate Republic":

On March 8, Tom Cobb moved to prohibit the admission of nonslaveholding states to the Southern republic. But Cobb's own Georgia delegation was divided, with Stephens and Robert Toombs leading the opposition. After three days of debate the motion failed. The delegates eventually agreed to a compromise allowing for the admission of free states but requiring a two-thirds vote of approval from both House and Senate. This result gave new life to reports of sentiments for compromise in the convention and greatly alarmed the fire-eaters. Both sides probably attached too much importance to this matter because it was unlikely that any free states would want to join the Confederacy, and in any case, the new nation's commitment to slavery was embedded in the Constitution.

The convention was in a compromising mood and the measure wasn't as significant as some late 20th century historians might have believed. 2/3rds of each half of the Confederate Congress would have to approve and the Senate would vote as states.

This meant that the Deep South States would be able to block any admission of free states on the first go around. The 2/3rds requirement and the Confederacy's explicit and pronounced committment to slavery meant that few free states would realistically be tempted to join.

Why would free states that had objected to slave catchers coming north to take back runaways ever vote to join a country that was even more dedicated to catching and returning runaways? Why would Deep South militants who were worried about the flagging committment to slavery in the Border States and even in the Upper South agree to admitting free states into their Confederacy? That would be inviting the abolitionist foxes into the slaveowner's henhouse. So yes, the door was theoretically open to admitting free states, but it was based on some imaginary future. It was also a good public relations measure, if anyone had noticed it at the time.

Emory Thomas suggests in "The Confederate Nation" that some moderates believed that free states in the Mississipi Valley might at some point be tempted to join, and that those states' admission would strengthen the Confederacy to get territories for slave owners elsewhere -- in the West, in Mexico or (I'll add) the Caribbean. In any event, none of this affected the Confederacy's committment to slavery, whatever late 20th century historians might imagine.

Politicians make compromises and concessions. They kick the can down the road. Often they make sure that their concessions aren't likely to have serious real world consequences. The Confederate convention didn't bar the admission of free states. They didn't make it easy either. If it happened at some point down the road, the CSA would deal with that later. It didn't affect the Confederacy's commitment to slavery.

There's a parallel to the Corwin Amendment. Congress and Lincoln threw it out there as a last ditch attempt to save the union. It worked for a minute. The Upper South rejected secession before war began. Then it didn't work. It was never really going to bring back the Deep South States that had seceded. Secession gave them all the security for slaveholding they wanted. They had crossed the Rubicon and they weren't coming back.

It isn't true that Lincoln was lobbying the states to ratify the amendment after war began. The amendment had already failed in its purpose, and there was no reason to carry on with it. Even before the war, Lincoln's support for the amendment was lukewarm and distanced. He said he had no objection to it and notified state governors that the amendment was submitted for ratification without explicitly endorsing it.