Ask yourself this though, if the debate were over something like, the right to own a platypus, instead of the right to own a person, do you think there would have been a war? Of course not, because it wasn't about what was or wasn't written down or any technicality, it was about slavery. It would have been the same outcome no matter what the law said because at the end of the day some people wanted slaves, and other found the practice abhorrent - it was a fatal flaw baked into the founding of the country. And as the scales began to tip against the slave holders they found whatever reasons/excuses/whatever they needed to to retain their power