FACT: April 15, 1861...Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to “suppress the rebellion.” (Seen throughout the country as a declaration of war against the seceded states.)
FACT: April 19, 1861...Lincoln ordered the blockade of Southern ports. (In and of itself an act of war against the South.)
FACT: April 27, 1861...Lincoln ordered an expanded blockade to include North Carolina and Virginia; (Another act of war against the South.)
May 6, 1861...The South declares war against the North.
So, who started the war? Don’t say the South when it fired on Fort Sumter, because Fort Sumter was in South Carolina, which had seceded, and thus was not a part of the United States, and a United States military force was occupying South Carolina territory and refused to vacate it. So, who actually initiated aggression against an independent country? Lincoln’s federals did when they blockaded Southern ports. All prior to the South declaring war. It’s like December, 1941. Did the war with Japan begin when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor? Or did it begin when Roosevelt asked for and Congress issued a Declaration of War a few days later? Of course that war began on December 7, 1941 with the Japanese attack on pearl Harbor.
Did WWII in Europe begin on September 1, 1939 with the German attack on Poland? Or did it begin later when the Poles could make a declaration of war? It began on September 1, 1939 with the German invasion of Poland.
Finally, you snidely assert that my country is NOT the USA. You can kiss my white ass, bub, because USA is my country, a country I proudly served during Vietnam while in the US Air Force.
But you don’t defend the USA whenever there’s an opportunity to to trash us in favor of your real heartthrob, the CSA.
FRiend, the facts are indisputable.
First the Confederacy provoked war dozens of times by unlawfully seizing by force US Federal properties —forts, ships, arsenals, mints, etc.
Outgoing Democrat President Buchanan did nothing to stop secessionist lawlessness, but in those few cases where there were actual Union troops, Buchanan held the forts, and attempted to resupply them.
Dough - faced and sympathetic as Buchanan was to the Southern cause, he never agreed that Confederate seizures of Federal properties was lawful.
After his inauguration on March 4, 1861, Lincoln merely continued Buchanan’s policy of supplying Union troops in Southern forts.
But by now the Confederacy was going berserk, demanding immediate surrender, and when the Union commander at Fort Sumter tried to delay a few days longer, Confederates launched a military assault that began the Civil War as certainly as the Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor began US direct participation in WWII.
Those are facts which cannot be disputed.
It’s also factual to report that the Confederacy soon formally declared war and sent military aid to pro-Confederates in the Union state of Missouri, all before a single Confederate soldier was killed directly by any Union force, and before any Union Army invaded a single Confederate state.
As for whether Lincoln ever “declared war”, insane Confederates were saying his Inaugural Address on March 4, was a “declaration of war” when in fact it offered an olive branch of peace.
But Confederates had no interest in peace, and called everything Lincoln said war declarations.
In the meantime, all of the actual warfare was being conducted be the Confederacy against the United States.
Out of timr, must run...