Secession-Another Look at the U.S. Constitution

[whitworth]

Secession in many ways was caused by an agreement that the slaveowners forefathers, such as George Washington, of Virginia, had agreed to in signing the U.S. Constitution.
The way to wealth in the southern states was by owning slaves that farmed vast areas of the South. Cotton was king and so was the ownership of slaves to prepare the forests and work the plantations.
Slaves were wealth and part of the base of that wealth was the ability to sell slaves throughout the slave holding states and into the territories. The Southern Slave Oligarchy needed territories to sell its excessive slave populations.

Lincoln was a threat to that continued commerce and so was a U.S. Congress controlled by the free states.
A U.S. Congress, controlled by free states, could limit and even stop admitting territories that wanted to become slave states. A U.S. Congress, controlled by free states, could limit the selling and bringing of slaves into the territories. A U.S. Congress, controlled by free states, could ban slavery in the territories.

Historians, seemingly totally ignore in Article IV, Section 3., The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States;...

This small passage helped motivate the Southern States to secede, because they knew the power given to the Congress, under the U.S. Constitution, to control the question of slavery in the territories was supreme. The individual states had no say in the matter.

One should note that this similar power was not given to the Confederate Congress in the Constitution of the Confederate States.
Without slavery in the territories, the South would have no new area to sell excess slaves, and thereby suppress the value of the slave in the Slave states.