[BroJoeK]

jeffersondem: "At that time Section 2, Article IV was still part of the United States Constitution - the Constitution Abraham Lincoln twice took an oath to 'preserve, protect and defend . . .' "

Oh, "preserve, protect and defend" -- sort of sounds like, if they go to war against us, we fight & defeat them, doesn't it?

But does it also mean the Compromise of 1850 must remain law forever, that Congress can never abolish a law Congress made?
Funny, I missed that section.
Was that the missing Article 8, section 1 which said: "whatever slavers want, slavers get"?

[x]

Slave owners had the opportunity and the right to take the case to the courts and say that the legislature and the executive weren't supporting their right to the return of their slaves with the appropriate legislation or action. If that failed they could take their case to the people in the elections.

But by 1864 everybody knew that slavery was on its way out. Nobody had much sympathy with the slaveowners' cause when the slavemasters were at war with the US. That wouldn't have been the case if 11 slave states weren't fighting the rest of the country, but they were. In any case, individual slaveowners still had the option of taking their case to the courts, right up until the time when slavery was abolished by the 13th Amendment.