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Secessionists didn’t trust the Republicans. They thought Lincoln would use his appointment power to build up the Republican Party in the Border States. Eventually, slavery would be abolished in those states and the Republicans would organize in the Upper South and do the same there. The secessionists recognized the Corwin Amendment as a last minute attempt to hold the country together. The proposed Amendment did nothing to overcome their fear and their hatred of the Republicans.

The Deep South states were already gone when Lincoln took office. They’d gotten what they wanted. They assumed that slavery and their way of life would be secure as an independent nation. They weren’t going to do a U-turn and come back. And yes, the Corwin Amendment wouldn’t do anything about the fear of Northern abolitionists and slave revolts.

Secessionists didn’t trust the Republicans. They thought Lincoln would use his appointment power to build up the Republican Party in the Border States. Eventually, slavery would be abolished in those states and the Republicans would organize in the Upper South and do the same there.

Show me your math. How many upper South states would they have to flip before they could pass a constitutional amendment to ban slavery?

The secessionists recognized the Corwin Amendment as a last minute attempt to hold the country together.

If they would just wait till all or most of the slave states left, they could quickly pass an amendment to ban slavery.

Of course, when given the chance, they immediately tried to pass an amendment to protect slavery.

The paradox of Southern slaveholding was that, for all the talk of it resting on liberty and a right to hold slaves as property, the preservation of slavery required increasingly stringent measures. This meant slave patrols and intrusive laws and police action. In most places in the South, it was illegal to teach slaves to read and write, and emancipation was forbidden or made difficult.

In addition, the visible energy and success of so many free blacks was unsettling to slavery because it contradicted assertions that it reflected a natural order based on race. Moreover, if so minded, free blacks could become a ready and active means of subverting slavery.

So long as the Union stood intact, abolitionist Northerners might overwhelm the South's system for maintaining slavery, and especially so by energizing free blacks to subvert slavery. It was easy enough to imagine a combination of abolitionist states financing such efforts, using the mails and the cover of commerce, aiming first at states where slavery was less secure.

Against such measure the Corwin Amendment would do nothing. Eventually, the abolitionists in the Union would have their way.

Secessionists didn’t trust the Republicans. They thought Lincoln would use his appointment power to build up the Republican Party in the Border States. Eventually, slavery would be abolished in those states and the Republicans would organize in the Upper South and do the same there.

This is pure fantasy.

The secessionists recognized the Corwin Amendment as a last minute attempt to hold the country together. The proposed Amendment did nothing to overcome their fear and their hatred of the Republicans.

Actually what the Corwin Amendment did was offer the original 7 seceding states no relief from the crushing tariff burden the Morrill tariff would impose.

The Deep South states were already gone when Lincoln took office. They’d gotten what they wanted. They assumed that slavery and their way of life would be secure as an independent nation.

No they didn't. Many recognized that slavery would be quickly doomed. There was no way they could secure the border. What they wanted was commercial independence. That's what they got via seceding. If they were commercially independent, their profits would soar. Even with slavery ending, the profits from low tariff trade and handling the export portion of it themselves would have easily enabled them to pay wages and still be far richer. Several Northern Newspapers pointed out that the South would win via secession and the North would lose.

"The Southern Confederacy will not employ our ships or buy our goods. What is our shipping without it? Literally nothing. The transportation of cotton and its fabrics employs more than all other trade. It is very clear the South gains by this process and we lose. No, we must not let the South go." The Manchester, New Hampshire Union Democrat Feb 19 1861

They weren’t going to do a U-turn and come back. And yes, the Corwin Amendment wouldn’t do anything about the fear of Northern abolitionists and slave revolts.

They weren't going to come back because that would have meant subjecting themselves to the economically devastating Morrill Tariff. Preservation of slavery was obviously not the main concern since slavery was much safer within the union than outside of it. In addition to that, slave owners represented less than 6% of the White Southern population. Everybody would be affected by the Morrill tariff however - not just less than 6% of the population.