[dayglored]

> ...an amendment that would guarantee slavery in the United States indefinitely... they voted to keep slavery forever... Lincoln urged all the states to ratify this amendment in his first inaugural address.

I was unaware of this proposed amendment (the "Corwin Amendment"), nor of Lincoln's support of it. Thank you for including your comment about it.

[DiogenesLamp]

I was unaware of this proposed amendment (the "Corwin Amendment"), nor of Lincoln's support of it. Thank you for including your comment about it.

You are welcome. I was shocked when I learned of it. It doesn't fit with all the things I had been taught about the Civil War. How could Lincoln have supported an amendment to keep slavery forever?

I am fond of citing this article to people who want more insight on the topic.

The 'Ghost Amendment' That Haunts Lincoln's Legacy

And while we are on the topic of surprises I learned about the civil war... Lincoln attacked first. The confederate attack on Sumter was a response to Lincoln ordering a war fleet to sail to Charleston and force the confederates to comply.

The warships Lincoln sent were Powhatan, Pocahontas, Pawnee, Harriet Lane, Yankee and a large ocean going passenger ship carrying troops called "Baltic."

Their orders were to use their force if resisted by the Confederates. It was the arrival of the Harriet Lane that convinced General Beauregard that an attack and an invasion was imminent.

But they don't ever mention this belligerent act by Lincoln when they teach history.

[FLT-bird]

I was unaware of this proposed amendment (the "Corwin Amendment"), nor of Lincoln's support of it. Thank you for including your comment about it.

I too only learned of the Corwin Amendment AFTER graduating from a good university as a history major. It tells you a lot that this is so hidden.....middle school, high school college, movies, TV.....you'd think you would hear about it. Yet you don't. The North was willing to protect slavery, effectively forever (there aren't even enough states now to overturn it had it passed) by express constitutional amendment.

But Wait!

I thought it was "all about" slavery????? Here, the Southern states had the very thing they were supposedly seceding and fighting for simply handed to them on a silver platter without ever having to fight..........so, what were the two sides really fighting over? It obviously wasn't slavery.

Again, just think of all the propaganda you had to have been told to get this far in life without ever hearing such an important fact. If they could hide a great big true fact like this from you for all those years.....what else is the Establishment (Academia, TV, Hollywood, the Federal Government, etc) lying to you about?

Once you've had your eyes opened, it changes you. You can never fully trust the Establishment again. You will become skeptical of everything they say. You start to see just how much they are lying to you and how much they are trying to manipulate you.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "an amendment that would guarantee slavery in the United States indefinitely...
they voted to keep slavery forever...
Lincoln urged all the states to ratify this amendment in his first inaugural address."

dayglored: "I was unaware of this proposed amendment (the "Corwin Amendment"), nor of Lincoln's support of it.
Thank you for including your comment about it."

One reason you never heard of it is because the way DiogenesLamp tells it, it's all lies.
The truth is:

1. Corwin-type amendments were first proposed in December 1860 by, among others, Mississippi Senator Jefferson Davis.
   Davis promised that Republicans accepting his proposal would prevent Mississippi from declaring secession.
   But Republicans rejected Davis's proposals, and others similar (i.e., Crittenden), because they expanded slavery beyond the existing limits on it.

2. The result was Mississippi and other slave-states declared secession, and formed their own Confederacy, which provided every protection of slavery they could ask for.
   These Confederate constitutional protections included:
   • No Confederate state or territory could abolish slavery.

   • No Confederate state or territory could restrict slaveholders who "shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property".

   • Confederate states could import slaves from the United States.

   • Article I Section 9(4): "No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.[13]"

   So, not only was abolition impossible in the Confederacy, but so were any restrictions "impairing the right of property in negro slaves."

3. Given the Confederacy's total protection of slavey, there was no way the Union could offer the Deep South a "better deal".
   Nor did they try to.

4. The Corwin amendment was not intended to lure Confederate states back into the Union, but rather to reassure Union Border Slave-States that existing laws would not be changed.
   Corwin simply said there would be no national laws abolishing slavery in states where it was legal, just as there had been none since the Constitution was ratified in 1788.

5. Corwin did not prevent states from continuing to abolish or restrict slavery as they saw fit.

6. Corwin did not prevent Federal government from abolishing slavery in US territories or in Washington, DC.

7. Corwin did not prevent the US Supreme Court from defining the human rights of slaves.

8. As Lincoln said in his March 4, 1861 Inaugural Address, he did not oppose Corwin because it made no changes to the Constitution as Lincoln understood it.

9. Finally, the necessary support for Corwin in Congress came from 100% of Democrats joined by a minority of Republicans (RINOs).
   The majority of Republicans in Congress opposed Corwin.

Kentucky, Rhode Island, Maryland and Illinois ratified Corwin.
All but Kentucky later rescended their ratifications.