[DoodleDawg]

As such, it could easily have interdicted Southern commerce by closing down a Southern trade port.

In the four months the federal troops were in the fort did it ever once interfere with ships going into and out of Charleston?

The South chose to stop it; indeed, it really had no other option. And in so doing, the South played right into Lincoln’s hands, because Lincoln could – and did – wax indignant that the South fired the first shot.

To say that the nasty ol' Lincoln tricked the South into firing first does not say much about the Confederate leadership, does it?

He was told that Beauregard’s bombardment of Sumter was what started the war. Davis pooh-poohed the idea, and rightfully so.

After four years of war Davis was confused on what started it? Really?

[ought-six]

“In the four months the federal troops were in the fort did it ever once interfere with ships going into and out of Charleston?”

The point is it could have. That’s what the original comment stated.

[BroJoeK]

ought-six: "The South chose to stop it; indeed, it really had no other option.
And in so doing, the South played right into Lincoln’s hands, because Lincoln could – and did – wax indignant that the South fired the first shot."

Remember, on February 18, Jefferson Davis promised that he would go to war if the Union "assailed" Confederate "integrity".
On March 4, Abraham Lincoln promised he would not "assail" them and so they could only have war if they themselves started it.

On April 12 Davis decided he was being "assailed" at Fort Sumter and Lincoln decided the Confederacy had started war.
"And so the war came."

Whether Davis was correct in using Fort Sumter as his excuse to start Civil War is undeniable, short term, since the Confederacy immediately received four new states -- Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas -- nearly doubling their white population.
In that sense, Davis' move was a stroke of pure genius.

Longer term, of course, Davis had roused the Union to action, and to the Confederacy's eventual doom.
But politically, Davis had no real choice since almost the entire Deep South was clamoring for decisive actions at Fort Sumter.
Voices urging caution (i.e., Confederate Secretary of State Robert Toombs) were few & far between.
So had Davis delayed too long in taking action at Fort Sumter chances are good Davis himself would be replaced by more aggressive Confederate leaders.

Toombs to Davis on reading Lincoln's letter to _Pickney:

"Mr. President, at this time it is suicide, murder, and will lose us every friend at the North.
You will wantonly strike a hornet's nest which extends from mountain to ocean, and legions now quiet will swarm out and sting us to death.
It is unnecessary; it puts us in the wrong; it is fatal."