The Constitution and the Issue of Slavery, A new Look at it. (part III )

The Civil war or as it is called at times the war between the States began April 12, 1861 and ended on April 9, 1865. but as it was said previously the political battles prior to the war was not about slavery itself but the expansion of the institution of slavery. This was the gist of Lincoln's “House divided” speech made on June 16, 1858 that is quoted so often and taken out of context of its intent. In it he said the following.


"A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.

Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new — North as well as South.”

All of you Biblical buffs might recognize that this speech as coming from Matthew 12:25. And from this speech we can see that Lincoln's was not so much concerned about slavery itself as he was concerned about the unity of the nation. Apparently, the idea of secession of some states was seen as inevitable unless there was some kind of solution to this problem that was dividing this nation.

Another attempt to prevent secession was shown when Congress tried to pass the Corwin amendment to the Constitution, 3/2/1861. Corwin Amendment supporters seem to have believed it would not have changed 1860s law other than to have restricted the Congress's future powers. It further appears that supporters regarded the amendment as simply a reiteration of principles already contained in the Constitution. President Lincoln was for this amendment. The amendment stated the following.

“No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.”

In understanding of this amendment we can see that it reveals a couple of things about the mindset of the people. First it was intended on assuring those States where slavery was legal that the U.S. Government would not interfere in their way of life thus there would be no need to secede. The second thing it reveals is that it acknowledges that all domestic affairs was strictly within the powers and authority of the States.

The federal government had no Constitutional authority or power to interfere in domestic affairs except on this specific issue as I advocated in a previous post concerning the Constitution. Even then, as we can see, based on the laws at that time the federal government could only address the issue within the authority given to it by the Constitution. It could only regulate the importation of slaves and regulate the expansion of it to new territories. This can be seen in the following wikipedia quotation as to Lincoln's understanding of the Constitution.

Outgoing President James Buchanan publicly endorsed the Corwin Amendment. Abraham Lincoln, in his first inaugural address, did not oppose the Corwin Amendment: "Holding such a provision to now be implied Constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable." Just weeks prior to the outbreak of the Civil War, Lincoln penned a letter to each governor asking for them to support the Corwin Amendment.

In my humble opinion, this is irrefutable evidence as to how the powers were meant to be divided up between the State governments and the federal government per the Constitution. Without convincing evidence to the contrary any political ideology of the Constitution that does not recognize this division of powers is a declaration that ideology takes priority over the Constitution.