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But as I already outlined, there were 15 states that still had slavery. There simply were nowhere near enough states to pass a constitutional amendment repealing the Corwin Amendment unless the states that still had slavery consented. Funny, you choose to ignore the basic math.

They would have had to pass it first, and they never got close to that. No one even voted to ratify it until after the CW started, and that was only a last ditch effort to preserve the Union.

Oh, and "anti-slavery" does not mean "abolitionist".

I would refer you to Georgia's declaration of secession. Just search for the word "abolition".

The Republican Party was merely against the spread of slavery. They were not in favor of abolition.

What part of "ordained that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law" is unclear to you?

They themselves said so over and over again.

Frederick Douglas, who lived through these times as a freed slave, answered that here.

There were nowhere near enough of them (abolitionists) to do that. Slavery was only banned after the war when Northern politicians were desperate to try to claim some noble purpose behind all the blood and carnage they caused when they started a war for money and empire.

Then later, you posted.

It was pushed through as a fig leaf to try to cover for the bloodbath Lincoln started. They had to tell all those voters in the Northern states their loved ones were killed or maimed for something other than to line the pockets of special interest groups.

So you're saying the North used abolition to sell the war to the populace, even though only a tiny minority were abolitionists. That makes sense.

The constitution is the supreme law of the land. It was the contract made between the states. The Northern states broke it. That was the "injury" the Southern states could cite as providing legal justification to secede.

The fact that they even saw it as a ligitimate reason tells me everything I need to know about the confederacy.

The slave trade had been illegal since the Grandfather Clause in the constitution expired in 1810. Of course there was massive illicit slave trading that New Englanders continued well into the mid 19th century, but it had not been legal for over 50 years by the time the Southern states seceded.

How does this refute my point, which was "That's funny. It was about money, but they abolished the profitable slave trade."?

I would add there is quite overt slavery in China which big companies like Nike and Apple and others are lobbying Congress not to sanction China for...so those greedy bastards can continue to profit from it by having those slaves make cheap goods they can then import into the US.

That's what I was referring to. We agree on this.

The individual owners of slaves had an economic incentive to try to keep them healthy and to at least not make their conditions so bad that they would run away at any opportunity.

And human traffickers have reason to keep their kidnapped women looking good so they can keep making money off of them. Are you serious?

That is different than a program of extermination like the Nazis had in which they planned to work their slaves to death - or like the Soviets/CCP had and have in which they at best do not care if their slaves die because there are plenty more they can enslave. The treatment of an individual enslaved by a government is far worse - let alone the treatment of individuals deemed enemies of the state in totalitarian dictatorships like the State Socialists or National Socialists.

I suppose next you're going to tell me no slaves were killed or maimed by their masters.

Georgia's declaration said they were anti slavery - not that they were abolitionists. These are two different things.

They were abolitionists, which made them anti-slavery. Georgia's statement used both terms.

They got several Northern states to ratify it and this was before Lincoln started the war.

At least one of those states, Maryland, sympathized with the confederacy.

They specifically got Northern states to ratify it to show the original 7 seceding states that they were serious about it. Had those states indicated that the Corwin Amendment would satisfy their concerns, they would have gotten even more Northern states to ratify it. Then the original 7 could have come back in and also ratified it to make sure it passed. Once they explicitly rejected it and refused to come back in, there was no point for Lincoln to push more Northern states to ratify it.

All conjecture. The North never came close to ratifying it.

Virginia's objection and the objection of the rest of the states in the Upper South was Lincoln choosing to launch a war of Aggression

You don't think taking slaves is an act of war on those taken, legal or not?

on the ~~original 7 seceding~~ Slaveholding states in order to impose a government upon them that they no longer consented to. Their objection was that the federal government was not respecting the states' right to self determination.

Fixed it, using their wording.

Look at when they seceded. Look at what their newspapers and political leaders were saying.

From Georgia: "or the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic."

Also from Georgia: "The party of Lincoln, called the Republican party, under its present name and organization, is of recent origin. It is admitted to be an anti-slavery party."

From Mississippi: "It has grown until it denies the right of property in slaves, and refuses protection to that right on the high seas, in the Territories, and wherever the government of the United States had jurisdiction. It refuses the admission of new slave States into the Union, and seeks to extinguish it by confining it within its present limits, denying the power of expansion. It tramples the original equality of the South under foot. It has nullified the Fugitive Slave Law in almost every free State in the Union, and has utterly broken the compact which our fathers pledged their faith to maintain."

From South Carolina: "But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery"

They would have had to pass it first, and they never got close to that. No one even voted to ratify it until after the CW started, and that was only a last ditch effort to preserve the Union.

They didn't ratify it because the original 7 seceding states rejected it. No one voted to ratify it until after Lincoln started the war because he only sent it to the states' governors a few weeks before he started the war.

I would refer you to Georgia's declaration of secession. Just search for the word "abolition".

I would refer you to any of a whole host of statements from various Republicans stating that they were expressly not abolitionists - they were merely against the spread of slavery.

What part of "ordained that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law" is unclear to you?

LOL! I see you actually are going to try to engage in the fiction that being against the spread of slavery = abolitionism. "The motive of those who protested against the extension of slavery had always really been concern for the welfare of the white man, and not an unnatural sympathy for the negro." William Seward.

[the Republican Party's stance] "all the unoccupied territory shall be preserved for the benefit of the white caucasian race -a thing which cannot be but by the exclusion of slavery." New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley

[on the Emancipation Proclamation]"We show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating them where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free." William Seward Secretary of State under Lincoln

There is a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all white people to the idea of indiscriminate amalgamation of the white and black races ... A separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation, but as an immediate separation is impossible, the next best thing is to keep them apart where they are not already together. If white and black people never get together in Kansas, they will never mix blood in Kansas ... Abraham Lincoln

"In the first half of the nineteenth century, state legislatures in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut took away Negroes' right to vote; and voters in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Maine, Iowa, and Wisconsin approved new constitutions that limited suffrage to whites. In Ohio, Negro males were permitted to vote only if they had "a greater visible admixture of white than colored blood." (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, p. 54)

"The problem with this lofty rhetoric of dying to make men free was that in 1861 the North was fighting for the restoration of a slaveholding Union. In his July 4 message to Congress, Lincoln reiterated the inaugural pledge that he had 'no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with slavery in the States where it exists.'" (McPherson, Ordeal By Fire, p. 265)

Here are Lincoln's own words:

"There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that— I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had made this and many similar declarations and had never recanted them"

Frederick Douglas, who lived through these times as a freed slave, answered that here.

When the Republicans themselves openly and repeatedly declared that they were not abolitionists....that they had no intention of interfering with slavery where it existed, there's nothing more to say on the matter. That's definitive.

So you're saying the North used abolition to sell the war to the populace, even though only a tiny minority were abolitionists. That makes sense.

AFTER the war. AFTER. That's key.

The fact that they even saw it as a ligitimate reason tells me everything I need to know about the confederacy.

Everybody saw it as legitimate. Were that not so, the constitution would not have had a Fugitive Slave Clause nor a 3/5ths compromise.

How does this refute my point, which was "That's funny. It was about money, but they abolished the profitable slave trade."?

They only abolished the slave trade on paper. They continued slave trading on a very large scale for 50 years after the legality of it expired. ie they were greedy as hell and their primary motivation was always MONEY.

And human traffickers have reason to keep their kidnapped women looking good so they can keep making money off of them. Are you serious?

YES! They have incentive not to kill them. The Nazis and Commies had no such incentive with their victims. Indeed killing them was their goal.

I suppose next you're going to tell me no slaves were killed or maimed by their masters.

Don't suppose. Of course some were. It was however, rare. People do not generally destroy their own property. Their incentive is to take care of their property.

They were abolitionists, which made them anti-slavery. Georgia's statement used both terms.

Except they were not abolitionists as they themselves said numerous times.

All conjecture. The North never came close to ratifying it.

Lincoln started the war first and the original 7 seceding states rejected it before many Northern states had a chance to pass it.

You don't think taking slaves is an act of war on those taken, legal or not?

Not sure I understand the question. The slaves were taken by Yankee slave traders from African slave traders. We're not talking about sovereign countries here.

From Georgia: blah blah blah

Yes, they noted the Northern states had violated the Constitution. The Northern states had indeed violated the constitution. There's no question of it.

Nice work, TwelveOfTwenty!

FLT-bird on Corwin: "They got several Northern states to ratify it and this was before Lincoln started the war."

TwelveOfTwenty: "At least one of those states, Maryland, sympathized with the confederacy."

Both Maryland & Kentucky supplied Confederate troops, but their Union troops outnumbered Confederates, in Maryland ~2-to-1 and in Kentucky ~3-to-1.

As usual, FLT-bird is confused & disoriented, so here are the facts:

Corwin ratification dates:

Kentucky -- April 4, 1861
Fort Sumter -- April 12, 1861
Ohio -- May 13, 1861 (rescinded March 31, 1864)
Rhode Island -- May 31, 1861
Maryland -- January 10, 1862 (rescinded April 7, 2014)
Illinois -- June 2, 1863 (disputed validity)

Note again the totals: 2 slave states plus 2 or 3 (was Illinois' valid) free states ratified.

Now compare those dates to the dates those same states ratified the 13th Amendment:

Kentucky -- rejected February 4, 1865, ratified March 18, 1976 (35th state to ratify)
Ohio -- February 10, 1865 (13th state to ratify)
Rhode Island -- February 2, 1865 (2nd state to ratify)
Maryland -- February 3, 1865 (4th state to ratify)
Illinois -- February 1, 1865 (1st state to ratify)

Confederate surrenders began in April 1865.

Bottom line on Corwin: it was supported unanimously by Democrats in Congress, opposed by a majority of Republicans, signed by Democrat President Buchanan, it may (or may not) have helped keep Kentucky & Maryland in the Union.
In spring of 1861 Lincoln himself was willing to allow slavery as a peace-deal to preserve the Union, but even then many Union leaders understood that Confederacy could only be destroyed if slavery was also destroyed, hence "Contraband of War", 1861 Confiscation Act, Emancipation Proclamation and 13th Amendment.

So yes, Virginia, the Civil War was all about preserving the Union and destroying slavery.