No, no, no.
It is always justified to liberate a slave, even if it would be unconstitutional to do so. No constitution can properly prevent the liberation of slaves. A constitution that permits slavery need not be heeded because it is illegitimate in the most profound way. To rise up against slavery even without amending such a constitution is morally valid. Just as if today the president would station troops outside of abortion clinics to shut them down, despite it being “against the law”, the laws are radically unjust in that they enshrine innocent-child-murder as a right.
But you can keep pretending that slavery was a little black mark, and not the gigantic festering cancer that it was.
Lincoln was a hero even if he acted outside the constitution.
Davis did not have such profound injustice in his corner.
“Lincoln was a hero even if he acted outside the constitution.”
How’s that? He never stepped outside the Constitution to free a single slave. In fact, contrary to popular belief due to public school system propaganda, Lincoln didn’t free the slaves, the 13th Amendment did.
I’m not supporting slavery or trying to minimize how bad it was. Still, if slavery was a “festering cancer”, then the cure killed the patient, which we can thank for no longer living in a constitutional republic. Instead of letting the slave states go their way and be judged by God on their own, we decided that somehow, in less than a century, Americans had lost the right of self-determination, and appointed our President as a little King George. Justify that all you want, but it sure doesn’t seem moral to me.