Lincoln: The Great Enslaver?

While watching Book TV on C-SPAN, I listened to an interview with Paul Escott, author of What Shall We Do With The Negro?, and was taken aback by his claim that Abraham Lincoln signed another version of the 13th Amendment that actually ensured that slavery would not be interfered with by the federal government. Here is the original text from www.w3f.com:

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.

Needless to say, I would have been blown away had it not been for the continual re-education process I've been getting for the past 3 years. "Myth-ification" is what the author called the revisionist/omission-ist history being sold as truth. I took it upon myself to do my own research into this amendment that was allegedly passed by Congress and signed by President Lincoln. I found this about the original 13th Amendment to the Constitution on the Great American History website:

The history behind this amendment's adoption is an interesting one. Prior to the Civil War, in February 1861, Congress had passed a Thirteenth Amendment for an entirely different purpose--to guarantee the legality and perpetuity of slavery in the slave states, rather than to end it. This amendment guaranteeing slavery was a result of the complicated sectional politics of the antebellum period, and a futile effort to preclude Civil War. Although the Thirteenth Amendment that guaranteed slavery was narrowly passed by both houses, the Civil War started before it could be sent to the states for ratification.

Makes one wonder how great Abraham Lincoln would have been had civil war not broken out. Check out Mr. Escott's Book TV interview: Paul Escott