the District of Corruption
You got that right!
Truly, the Constitution did establish slaves as property, it was left to war to change. We had a raggedy start.
It was left to constitutional amendment to change. A lot of people in the North didn't like that path. They simply wanted the law to be what they preferred, and not what it actually said. Northern liberals have always wanted a "living constitution" that they could interpret to mean what they wanted, and they have always disliked rigid clear meanings of written law.
War was a means by which they could get around the Constitutional requirement that was out of their reach, (3/4ths of the states) so they took advantage of their economic based war to enact their liberal preferences into law illegally.
The 13th amendment represents the power of force. It does not represent consent as the constitution intended.