Comment by btilly

Oh really? A direct threat?

Opposition to that act was, "We're not going to create new states with slavery." It wasn't, "We're getting rid of slavery in places that already have it." Which meant that it was not a direct threat to existing slave states. (Though there was a prospect that maybe, some day...)

Lincoln didn't like slavery. But he wasn't trying to ban it. It wasn't until the war had been going on for nearly two years that he signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Which basically said, "If you're still in rebellion a couple of months ago, we're going to free your slaves." It didn't eliminate slavery for any slave state that was part of the Union. It was an incentive to surrender. It was 2 years after that until the 13th amendment was passed.

It is very unlikely that slavery would have been banned during Lincoln's time in office, if the Civil War hadn't happened.

Was there a long-term prospect of a threat? Obviously. But there was no immediate threat. And so the fight wound up with protecting slavery on the one side, and asserting the indivisibility of the nation on the other side.

This is exactly parallel to the Mexico-Texan issue. Slavery was not being banned in the rebelling states.