Did it have to pass and become a constitutional amendment in order to have been offered? Yes or no.
And there weren't enough states in the North to ratify it, if they had any intention of doing so?
The effort to get it passed lost a lot of steam once the original 7 seceding states said they were not interested. As to the question of whether the remaining states could have passed this constitutional amendment without the original 7 seceding states, yes they could have. Even if one incorrectly assumes states cannot secede, there were still more than 3/4s of the states in the union when Lincoln offered it in his inaugural address.
They didn't have the votes in 1864. They had them in 1865, and the 13th Amendment was passed
Everybody including Southern Democrats voted for its passage in 1865.
All of these make the point that secession was for reasons in addition to slavery. None make the point that slavery wasn't a reason. Here are the sources. 10 were from Southern government officials and news sources taking the spotlight off of slavery. One was from a border state Democrat, Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton. The one from Thomas Jefferson in an 1820 letter could have been written in 2021. The three paragraphs from Georgia's declaration stated other reasons but also mentioned slavery. South Carolina Senator/Congressman Robert Barnwell Rhett mentioned slavery at the end of his speech.
These are a sample. There were more such statements by others. On another point, I have never argued that slavery was not AN issue. I have gone so far as to agree it was an IMPORTANT issue. What I have objected to is the claim made by PC Revisionists that it was "all about" slavery......or at least that it was THE big issue...the sine qua non of secession and the war. That I disagree with. The vast majority even in the original 7 seceding states were not slave owners. The Upper South seceded over the right of self determination and the sovereignty of the states.
Had the slaves all been freed and been sharecroppers as they were after the war, the economics would not have changed - the South would still have wanted low tariffs and the North would still have wanted high tariffs and they still would have been bitterly arguing about who gets all the federal government gravy. People almost always fight over money, not moral issues....though they're very fond of claiming its the latter.
The question is, was that one of their real reasons. Since they held on to their slaves when they could have taken that issue off the table if they had intended to release them, killed abolitionists who tried to free them, and tracked down slaves who escaped, the answer based on their actions is yes.
Was it "real"? I'm sure for some it was. Some genuinely believed it a better system than the horrible unsafe and unsanitary working/living conditions for the immigrant poor in Northern factories. I'm sure some just got their backs up because Northerners were pointing an accusatory finger at them - this always happens, its human nature. I don't think a large majority in the Southern states thought it important. They didn't have any slaves after all. So it was a "real" reason, it just wasn't one of the main reasons to most people. I have no doubt the Southern states cited it because legally, they had an ironclad case. The Northern states really had violated the constitution in a way that injured them. In the tradition of the train of abuses cited against the King in the Declaration of Independence, they could cite this as abusive behavior by the Northern states justifying secession.
You're correct in that some Democrats voted with the Republicans to pass the 13th Amendment, but many still resisted. The Republicans needed their gains to get it passed.
It was pretty much understood by everybody that the 13th amendment had to pass. As such, Southerners were willing to pass it since they all had to live in one country after the war so it was time to concede the point - which they did in good faith. What happened next ie the 14th amendment, the disenfranchisement of Southern voters, the unseating of democratically elected Southern leaders, the Occupation and exploitation of the Southern states for 12 years was unconstitutional, foolish and sowed a legacy of bitterness that lasted for well over a century - and gave rise to the KKK and Jim Crow laws.
I'll grant I inferred that, but if it was nationalism, then they saw the Union as their nation. Of course we don't know. Many could have been abolitionists or sympathizers. The South had them too.
Before the war and even a couple years into the war, there weren't many abolitionists. They could not win elections. It was undoubtedly nationalism. The French unleashed it in the early part of the 19th century under Napoleon. Italy unified for the first time since the Roman Empire in 1860. Germany reunified in 1871 for the first time really since the Landfrieden (Treaty) of Mainz in 1250. Manifest Destiny had been the driving force in American politics in the 1840s and 50s. It was a nationalist age.
First of all, my point was that the Republicans opposed slavery. I tried to take the territory part out of the discussion, but since you insist, "ordained that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law" in "all our National Territory".
Republicans were not opposed to slavery. They were opposed to the SPREAD of slavery. They just didn't want it in the territories. They wanted to keep that reserved for Whites only.
"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
So the question remains, since Lincoln was clearly talking out of both sides of his mouth, which side was telling the truth?
He wasn't talking out of both sides of his mouth. He may well have disliked slavery conceptually (though he was happy to represent a slaveowner in a successful lawsuit to recover his escaped slaves). But he was willing to protect slavery where it existed and was even willing to strengthen fugitive slave laws and to support a constitutional amendment to protect slavery. He just didn't want it to spread. He also did not want to see mixed race children and he wanted to deport all Blacks.
The sources you provided all said the quote was from a fragment. We don't know what that fragment was. None offered a transcript.
The quotes were from him in his handwriting in a folder he kept from the Lincoln-Douglas debates.
I never said it was all about slavery, but only that it was an issue.
For the record, I have never denied it was an issue or even that it was an important issue. I just don't agree that it was "all about" or that it was "the" big issue or that secession and war would not have happened "but for" slavery.
My own view is that had puritanical Yankees not used it as a wedge issue, had they not used it solely as a means of bashing the South......as a means of trying to win their power struggle over national policy and the goodies to be had from the federal government....as a way of not only accusing Southerners of not being at the forefront of economic developments (industrialization) but also of being morally defective, this issue could have been resolved the way it was resolved in practically all other Western countries. ie it could have been gotten rid of before too long via a compensated emancipation scheme.
But with their roots in puritanical zealotry, the Northeast just could not help itself. They just had to be the worst kind of arrogant judgmental (and massively hypocritical) busybodies dishonestly pushing this argument when their real goal was of course lining their own pockets as usual. Naturally, this pissed Southerners off royally and washed the ground right out from under Southern moderates' feet. The Northeast acted then just as they always had and just as they still do today. Its just as popular with others today as its always been.
Well you asked, so...
Yes. Lincoln might just as well have offered the British Empire. Neither was his to give.
The effort to get it passed lost a lot of steam once the original 7 seceding states said they were not interested.
It never came close to ratification even before it "lost steam".
Everybody including Southern Democrats voted for its passage in 1865.
There were more such statements by others. On another point, I have never argued that slavery was not AN issue.
You not only never made that point, you strongly denounced it in words that left me with no doubts about your sincerity about that.
It was pretty much understood by everybody that the 13th amendment had to pass. As such, Southerners were willing to pass it since they all had to live in one country after the war so it was time to concede the point - which they did in good faith.
Only Virginia and West Virginia were represented. Their reps, none of whom were Democrats, voted yes.
Before the war and even a couple years into the war, there weren't many abolitionists. They could not win elections
According to the declarations of secession, they did.
"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.
He was an abolitionist, and it was no secret many abolitionists were frustrated with how slow things were moving. Frederick Douglas also expressed frustration early on.
However, the former slaves who escaped into the North and were accepted into the Army and Navy proves that wasn't all of them.