Jefferson Davis' Farewell Address --
Senate Chamber, U.S. Capitol, January 21, 1861
<snip> [His state seceded because...] "She has heard proclaimed the theory that all men are created free and equal, and this made the basis of an attack upon her social institutions; and the sacred Declaration of Independence has been invoked to maintain the position of the equality of the races.
[^ Davis, making reference to well-known speeches by Lincoln citing the DoI in criticism of slavery.]
https://jeffersondavis.rice.edu/Content.aspx?id=87
https://jeffersondavis.rice.edu/Content.aspx?id=87
A few years earlier:
Speech of Jefferson Davis before the Mississippi Legislature, Nov. 16, 1858
Defending slavery and advocating secession if an abolitionist becomes president. The “dangerously powerful man” is Senator Seward, an opponent of slavery.
"It seems now to be probable that the Abolitionists and their allies will have control of the next House of Representatives, and it may be well inferred from their past course that the will attempt legislature both injurious and offensive to the south. I have an abiding faith that any law which violates our constitutional rights, will be met with a veto by the present Executive. – But should the next House of Representatives be such as would elect an Abolition President, we may expect that the election will be so conducted as probably to defeat a choice by the people and devolve the election upon the House.
Whether by the House or by the people, if an Abolitionist be chosen president of the United States,
you will have presented to you the question of whether you will permit the government to pass into the hands of your avowed and implacable enemies. Without pausing for your answer,
I will state my own position to be that such a result would be a species of revolution by which the purposes of the Government would be destroyed and the observances of its mere forms entitled to no respect.
<snip>
It requires but a cursory examination of the Constitution of the United States; but a partial knowledge of its history and of the motives of the men who formed it,
to see how utterly fallacious it is to ascribe to them the purpose of interfering with the domestic institutions of any of the States.
But if a disrespect for that instrument, a fanatical disregard of its purposes, should ever induce a majority, however large, to seek by amending the Constitution, to pervert it from its original object, and to deprive you of the quality which your fathers bequeathed to you, I say let the star of Mississippi be snatched from the constellation to shine by its inherent light, if it must be so, through all the storms and clouds of war. "
http://www.confederatepastpresent.o...ected-president-&catid=41:the-gathering-storm
There Jeff Davis is, years before Lincoln was elected, saying even if through Constitutional measures, by Amendment - anyone sought to deprive them of their slaves -- War! It's on.
If an Abolitionist is elected president, we are "avowed and implacable enemies."