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To: GOPcapitalist
The Lincoln's little pro-slavery amendment would have had the effect of artificially extending the institution well beyond its likely life by making it near impossible to repeal at a future date.

You are full of horse hockey. You are implying that amendment said that states couldn't end slavery in their borders if they wanted, and that is not true! With a 3/4 majority necessary for an amendment to the US Constitution, no reasonable person in 1860 ever expected slavery to be ended on a national level via amendment. It was a mathematical impossibility then and even with 50 states today, no constitutional amendment can pass if 15 states oppose it. But reasonable people then could expect it to end in the south on a state-by-state basis just as it had in the North. All Lincoln and the Republicans sought was to isolate slavery in the 15 states that then had it. Isolated, it would have become far less profitable and likely become a major economic drain as slave populations expanded faster than white population and slave values dropped as supply outstripped demand. With expansion, the selling of human flesh could have remained profitable indefinitely which is way the south was willing to go to war over expansion.

75 posted on 01/24/2003 12:29:46 PM PST by Ditto
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To: Ditto
You are full of horse hockey. You are implying that amendment said that states couldn't end slavery in their borders if they wanted

Not in the least and I defy you to show otherwise. The amendment stated that slavery could not be ended the way it was ended - by amendment.

With a 3/4 majority necessary for an amendment to the US Constitution, no reasonable person in 1860 ever expected slavery to be ended on a national level via amendment.

No, but it was certainly a future possibility as slavery declined economically and more states abandoned it. Eventually there would have been enough states to abolish it, but The Lincoln's amendment would have prohibited that.

77 posted on 01/24/2003 12:35:11 PM PST by GOPcapitalist
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