Indeed, even though the Constitution provides for its own alteration, some opponents condemned the Thirteenth Amendment as unconstitutional. The issue, declared Anton Herrick of New York, was not slavery but “the right of the states to control their domestic affairs.” “Give up our right to have slavery,” proclaimed Robert Mallory of Kentucky, “and in what rights are we secure? One after another will be usurped . . . until all state rights will be gone” and the white population reduced to “abject submission and slavery.”
