You are avoiding my question.
Your entire argument consists of 'those damn Democrats' and 'the south was/is evil'.
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Think about this:
Slavery was legal in the colonies.
Slavery was legal when the revolutionary War was fought.
Slavery was legal when the Constitution was signed.
The right to have escaped slaves returned was put in the Constitution. (Article 4, Section 2, Clause 3 )
So I ask you again-
Do you know what the words 'a Nation of laws, not of men' means?
Do you believe the Constitution is the 'law of the land'?
I not avoiding the question, states rights debate is a dead horse I can whip at any time.
The republicans were in the process of abolishing slavery within the laws of the land and eventualy would have amended the constitution to that effect with or without a civil war.
The southern democrats decided to secede to protect their right to own slaves claiming the constitution gave them the right to do so.
Only they weren't willing to ask to be allowed to secede in the halls of congress.
Just as new States are voted upon in congress so should the secession of states have been voted upon in congress. They chose to circumvent a legal process they could not win.
The southern democrats choose to ignore the constitution and the laws of the land by doing so.
As has been pointed out time and time again by those that argue for states rights The southern democrats believed that the constitutions of the individual states had more legal authority over them then the US constitution, and yet the first thing they love to point out is that the US constitution guarentees states right.
So which has more legal power, the individual state constitutions or the US constitution, if you say that The US constitution does because it guarentees states rights then clearly The Southern democrats by not arguing for their secession in the halls of congress ignored the constitution to suit their needs.
The right to have escaped slaves returned was put in the Constitution. (Article 4, Section 2, Clause 3 )
Because South Carolina, in particular, had said upfront that that unless slavery was protected, they wouldn't join the Union.
"Mr Pinkney. South Carolina can never receive the plan if it prohibits the slave trade".Seems like South Carolina was holding a gun to the moral sense of most of the country as early as 1787.
Records of the Federal Convention"Mr. Madison. Mr. Chairman, I should conceive this clause to be impolitic, if it were one of those things which could be excluded without encountering greater evils. The Southern States would not have entered into the Union of America without the temporary permission of that trade; and if they were excluded from the Union, the consequences might be dreadful to them and to us."
Virgina Ratification Debates