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the confederate constitution actually protected imports.

Yep, and Chase's actions 8 years earlier did nothing to influence his self serving decision in '69. < /sarcasm> The fact is that the statement in the Confederate Constitution went further towards ending slavery altogether than anything in the US Constitution. It further appeased the small, minute, non existant Abolitionist Party in the union by stating that no slaves would be accepted from union states. The border states knew that slavery was dying out over simple cost. Within 20-30 years it would have died off altogether. Stephens as much said this in his discussion with lincoln (root,pig, or perish conversation. Surely you remember that Non). Instead ol' abe decided that 600,000 men had to die, the nation go into debt 100 times what it was in '61, and his all glorious Hamiltonian Empire just HAD to be built

Ah yes, the ever popular 'slavery would have died out in 10 or 20 or 30 years anyway' song and dance. The fact is that you have absolutely no idea how long it could have lingered. It could have gone on 50 or 75 or a hundred years or more for all you know. There was no interest in ending it in the south in 1861, no emancipation movement, no hue and cry about the injustice of it all, no 'small, minute abolition party' in the confederacy, just $4 billion in human property that the owners were not about to give up easily. Slavery would have continued so long as southern society accepted it, and they were madly in love with the institution. Not just the plantation owners, who depended on it for their livelyhood, but the middle class with their slave maids and cooks and nannies and grooms an dbutlers. Where was the economic incentive for them to free their slaves? What incentive was there to do without their household help? Where would the pressure come from for them to end it? From Northern abolitionists? Nothing but a bunch of foreign busy-bodies. From southern society pressures? Please!

That clause was in the confederate constitution for one simple reason, the southern planters did a brisk business in buying slaves from Virginia and North Carolina. They didn't want to turn that supply off. They weren't about to let anything interfere with their institution of slavery, not even their govenment which is why the confederate constitution also banned any legislation hindering the owning of slaves. So rather than planning for the ending of slavery, the southern leaders started a war that cost the lives of 600,000 men precisely to protect slavery. You condemn the cost in blood to preserve the Union, but you would have happily accepted 600,000 dead, or more, in order to have your southron state.

The fact is that the statement in the Confederate Constitution went further towards ending slavery altogether than anything in the US Constitution.

How in God's name do you find a clause in the Confederate constitution that had existed in the US Constitution from its creation to be a step toward ending slavery? By 1860, there was not a single slave legally imported into the US (South Carolina never respected the constitution or any law) for over 50 years, yet the slave population of the US increased nearly fourfold in that same time.

They didn't need or want imports. That would have only depressed the value of their existing property.

I swear some of you guys see the CSA as some sort of heaven on earth when it was nothing but a damn feudal kingdom masquerading as a democracy.