I would encourage you to look further south. The maps presented here seem to end at the Rio Grande, as if that was the edge of the world. Jeff Davis and his Confederacy had their eyes on a much bigger market for their peculiar institution. Some might call it a golden circle that stretched through Mexico, down through Latin America, across northern South America and all the way to Cuba. They didn’t need any Corwin Amendment, or even western expansion. They had their eyes on a much bigger picture than some here (with their blinders on) discuss. It’s a waste of time even discussing the Corwin Amendment and or expansion into the “territories”. The Confederacy had high hopes to become a main player on the world stage separate from the parasitic Northern States.
Thanks...I am going to sniff around some of the antebellum congressional interaction between Northern and Southern delegations concerning the Gadsden Purchase...If I can find some time...
Au Contraire. The Corwin Amendment shows clearly that the North was not fighting to abolish slavery nor was it threatened within the US. And if the North was not fighting to abolish it, the South was not fighting to preserve it. THE big issue was not slavery.
As for "Manifest Destiny" aka the desire to expand and acquire new territory, that was present North and South in this period. There is no way of knowing what would have happened had the Southern states been left to pursue their own course. Of course, as Lincoln pointed out, with no Fugitive Slave Clause in the US constitution to protect them (once they were independent), slavery would have been brought to a rapid end by the number of slaves - and especially the young, strong, fit most economically productive slaves - who could have gained their freedom by simply crossing the 1500 miles CSA-USA border.