Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the following article be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which, when ratified by three-fourths of said Legislatures, shall be valid, to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution, viz.:

"Article Thirteen."

"No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State , with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State."

APPROVED, March 2, 1861.

Source: U.S. Statutes at Large (1861), page 251.

NOTE: If the purpose of the War for Southern Independence had been to protect slavery, the Southern states could have just stayed in the Union and ratified this amendment. It had already been passed by a Northern-controlled Congress over a month before Fort Sumter.