A government that wasn't 100% committed to slavery could do things to weaken the institution. For one thing, it could keep slavery out of the territories, taking the side of anti-slavery forces. It could start admitting new free states.
It could also repeal or stop enforcing fugitive slave laws. It could abolish slavery in the District of Columbia. It could seat judges who would overturn Dred Scott. Eventually, it could vote a system of voluntary compensated emancipation that might begin to unravel the slave system.
But saying that the government couldn't abolish slavery doesn't refute the fact that Southerners feared that Lincoln's election meant the eventual end of slavery. It didn't have to be rational. It was emotional. And that was what many Southerners felt at the time. Saying that it wasn't likely to happen doesn't change how people felt at a very anxious and fearful time.
You are just applying your own a priori assumptions to history and making conclusions on that basis. You have to look up how people actually thought at the time. Try reading DeBow's Review. Here's an article I picked out more or less at random from an 1860 issue: "The Issues of 1860." The article just gets crazier and crazier as you go along. When you think you've seen it all, it dives deeper into nonsense and madness. But that was how a lot of people thought at the time.
A South Carolina state legislature drew on this article in his speech: "THE DOOM OF SLAVERY IN THE UNION: ITS SAFETY OUT OF IT. There was a kind of domino theory at work here. If Kansas goes, so does Missouri, so does the Indian Territory, and so eventually do Arkansas and Texas. That may be irrational, but it's exactly how many secessionists thought. In their own words. It's not some idea of my own that I've imposed on them the way that you like to do.
“A government that wasn’t 100% committed to slavery could do things to weaken the institution. . . It could also repeal or stop enforcing fugitive slave laws.”
Not legally.
But in fact, that is exactly what the northern states did. Daniel Webster talked at length about the very thing:
“If the South were to violate any part of the Constitution intentionally and systematically, and persist in so doing, year after year, and no remedy could be had, would the North be any longer bound by the rest of it? And if the North were deliberately, habitually, and of fixed purpose to disregard one part of it, would the South be bound any longer to observe its other obligations?
“I have not hesitated to say, and I repeat, that if the Northern States refuse, willfully and deliberately, to carry into effect that part of the Constitution which respects the restoration of fugitive slaves, and Congress provide no remedy, the South would no longer be bound to observe the compact. A bargain cannot be broken on one side and still bind the other side.”
Of course, Lincoln and his backers had a plan to deal with those who didn’t want to be bound to a broken compact. Kill ‘em.
How does it legally do that? If it could not prohibit slavery in it's own capitol city, how could it do so in a territory? Did not the constitution require all states to respect Article IV, section 2? How could this apply less in a territory than to a state?
It could also repeal or stop enforcing fugitive slave laws.
You have read article IV, Section 2, have you not? How can congress pass a "law" that overrides a constitutional clause? Is not the constitution the highest law in the land? What you are proposing they do sounds completely unconstitutional.
It could seat judges who would overturn Dred Scott.
Now here you might have something. And who appoints the Judges? Yes, of course, Liberal judges would overturn real and actual law with a creative "interpretation" of it that would mean the exact opposite of what the law said.
But does this not make the Judiciary a sort of never ending constitutional convention, and aren't we supposed to oppose creative or flexible interpretations of law?
Eventually, it could vote a system of voluntary compensated emancipation that might begin to unravel the slave system.
The slave system was going to unravel anyways, it was just going to take awhile. Yes, Congress could offer to buy the slaves, but considering a slave was around $1,000 dollars in 1860 currency (close to $100,000.00 in Modern equivalence) it would have been a very expensive scheme.
But saying that the government couldn't abolish slavery doesn't refute the fact that Southerners feared that Lincoln's election meant the eventual end of slavery.
I think his election signaled to them that they would always be the rump and their concerns and interests would always be dismissed.
Here's an article I picked out more or less at random from an 1860 issue: "The Issues of 1860." The article just gets crazier and crazier as you go along. When you think you've seen it all, it dives deeper into nonsense and madness. But that was how a lot of people thought at the time.
Harper's Ferry scared the sh*t out of them. When you have the potential for a massive slave rebellion aided by Liberal kooks from the North (not unlike liberal kooks of today) trying to arm and lead them, it can make you paranoid.
There was a kind of domino theory at work here. If Kansas goes, so does Missouri, so does the Indian Territory, and so eventually do Arkansas and Texas.
If the Constitution could not protect their institution in the territories, it would eventually not be able to protect it in the states either, so they weren't all that far wrong in this perception. Eventually the territories would become states, and outvote them. They would likely face the loss of their billions of dollars of investments in slavery if the trend continued.
The thought of losing virtually all your wealth would also tend to make people a little crazy.