Some light reading, for anyone unfamiliar with the Confederate Constitution
Article 1, 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.
States are not allowed to impair the right to own slaves–specifically, negro slaves. “But there were slaves of all races!” And only one race was mentioned in the Confederate Constitution.
Article 4, Section 2(1):
The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired.
Again, the right to own slaves is protected, and I do not have the right to claim or free any slaves that set foot in my state after escaping from their owner in another.
Article 4, Section 2(3):
No slave or other person held to service or labor in any State or Territory of the Confederate States, under the laws thereof, escaping or lawfully carried into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor; but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such slave belongs,. or to whom such service or labor may be due.
My state cannot pass a law that frees any slave that sets foot on our soil, and furthermore, we must deliver any slaves that make their way here back to their owner.
Article 4, Section 3(3):
The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several Sates; and may permit them, at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form States to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected be Congress and by the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States.
Emphasis mine. Any new states allowed into the Confederacy must protect the institution of slavery, specifically negro slavery, as it exists in the Confederate States at the time of their founding. If my state is annexed, I have no right to decline participation in the institution of slavery; I must allow my citizens to own people–specifically, to own negroes.
Article 1 of the Confederate Constitution made it illegal for any Confederate state unilaterally outlaw slavery.
It wasn’t even about states rights a little bit.
Some light reading, for anyone unfamiliar with the Confederate Constitution
Article 1, Section 9(4):
States are not allowed to impair the right to own slaves–specifically, negro slaves. “But there were slaves of all races!” And only one race was mentioned in the Confederate Constitution.
Article 4, Section 2(1):
Again, the right to own slaves is protected, and I do not have the right to claim or free any slaves that set foot in my state after escaping from their owner in another.
Article 4, Section 2(3):
My state cannot pass a law that frees any slave that sets foot on our soil, and furthermore, we must deliver any slaves that make their way here back to their owner.
Article 4, Section 3(3):
Emphasis mine. Any new states allowed into the Confederacy must protect the institution of slavery, specifically negro slavery, as it exists in the Confederate States at the time of their founding. If my state is annexed, I have no right to decline participation in the institution of slavery; I must allow my citizens to own people–specifically, to own negroes.
But yeah, states’ rights and all that.