There can be no legitimate right for a state to enforce slavery on her people, now, in 2003, after some 140 years of social evolution; back then such was not the case. Slaves were valuable property, and the protection of private property is the principle purpose of government. The institution of slavery was legal in several states in 1860, among which were Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky and Missouri, where slavery continued several months after it's abolition in the conquered states. Slavery existed legally in the British Colonies from their founding until 1833, and in the United States from the Declaration of Independence in 1776 until some time late in 1865, when the 13th Amendment went into effect, a period of 89 years. Slavery existed in the Confederate States of America from February, 1861 to June, 1865, a period of 4 years and 4 months.
The concept that slavery was not a natural condition of much of humanity is a new one in the history of the human race. Slavery was not invented in the American South, and the idea that slaves should be freed did not originate in the North. Repugnant as the idea is to us, today, in 2003, the concept of one man owning another human being just as he would a horse or any other species of livestock was not considered out of the ordinary anywhere in the world until late in the 18th Century.
The tendency to condemn the people of the past because they were not as enlightened as we are is all part of an agenda to trivialize the achievements of our Founders as the work of "dead White guys who were slave owners," for the purpose of generating more "white guilt" and quashing patriotism and reverence for the Constitution.
Total BS. Obviously the contemporaries who fought against slavery were well aware of its immorality. The south opposed the abolition on economic grounds, not moral grounds.