is the pledge unconstitutional?

If they truly wanted to preserve the institution of slavery, leaving the union was the stupidest thing to do.

They were spoiling for a fight even before Lincoln was elected. John Floyd, a Virginian, was Buchanan's Secretaryof War until he resigned at the end of December, 1860. During 1860, he shipped more than 100,000 muskets from the St. Louis Arsenal to armories in the South--and did it quite illegally, too. Article One, Section 8 give Congress the power to provide for arming the militia. Floyd, as an executive branch employee, had no authority to ship the muskets without congressional approval or an act of congress.

He not only shipped the muskets, he actively encouraged state authorities to send him requests for muskets. The South was looking for a fight long before it started.

The true stupidity is that had the South remained in the Union, no constitutional power could have deprived them of their slaves. While by now, there would have been enough votes in Congress to propose an amendment (it takes two thirds of both houses), if the eleven states which actually seceded along with the four border states--Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri--failed to ratify, there would not be enough states to ratify such an amendment. Their political stupidity knew no bounds. John Breckenridge, Kentucky's favorite son and Buchanan's Vice President, ran against Stephen Douglas and the other two candidates (there were four in1860), thus splitting the Democratic Party and assuring the election of Lincoln.

Even had the North simply followed Winfield Scott's advice--"Go, wayward Sisters"--the South was screwed, because slaves who could escape could have gone north, and the South could not have enforced the fugitive slave laws. Crossing into United States Territory to attempt to recapture slaves would inevitably lead to incidents which probably would have lead to war.

What a bunch of pea-wits.

If they truly wanted to preserve the institution of slavery, leaving the union was the stupidest thing to do.

You haven't really given this dispassionate thought, have you?
You're just spouting another version of your ideology.

So? Slaves were already escaping.

Economicly, slavery wouldn't have proven to have been anything but a burden, in the face of an anti-slavery, industrial nation to the north.

They needed the north a lot worse than the north needed them.

A New Look at the "Civil War"

by Carl Pearlston

...

The nub of the problem was that the North wanted high tariffs on imported goods to protect its own manufactured products, while the South wanted low tariffs on imports and exports since it exported cotton and tobacco to Europe and imported manufactured goods in exchange. High tariffs in effect depressed the price for the South's agricultural exports; the South paid high prices for what it bought and got low prices for what it sold because of the federal tariff policy which the South was powerless to change. Southerners viewed themselves as being dominated by the mercantile interests of the North who profited from these high tariffs.

...

Consider, for example, a quote by author Charles Dickens in a London periodical in December 1861, "Union means so many millions a year lost to the South; secession means the loss of the same millions to the North. The love of money is the root of this as of many other evils....The quarrel between the North and South is, as it stands, solely a fiscal quarrel". As Adams notes, the South paid an undue proportion of federal revenues derived from tariffs, and these were expended by the federal government more in the North than the South: in 1840, the South paid 84% of the tariffs, rising to 87% in 1860. They paid 83% of the $13 million federal fishing bounties paid to New England fishermen, and also paid $35 million to Northern shipping interests which had a monopoly on shipping from Southern ports. The South, in effect, was paying tribute to the North. The address of Texas Congressman Reagan on 15 January 1861 summarizes this discontent: "You are not content with the vast millions of tribute we pay you annually under the operation of our revenue law, our navigation laws, your fishing bounties, and by making your people our manufacturers, our merchants, our shippers. You are not satisfied with the vast tribute we pay you to build up your great cities, your railroads, your canals. You are not satisfied with the millions of tribute we have been paying you on account of the balance of exchange which you hold against us. You are not satisfied that we of the South are almost reduced to the condition of overseers of northern capitalists. You are not satisfied with all this; but you must wage a relentless crusade against our rights and institutions." As the London Times of 7 Nov 1861 stated: "The contest is really for empire on the side of the North and for independence on that of the South....".

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/pearlston1.html

As far as Mr. Lincoln was concerned, the civil war was fought to preserve the union. That is why he wrote to Mr. Horace Greeley, in August, 1862: "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause." This is just more evidence of what an idiot you are--you are profoundly ill-informed, or uninformed, and you prove it every time you type that pathetic drivel.

Every time you respond to one of my posts with your uninformed, idiotic drivel, i am going to tell you: You are an idiot.