No. I'm not going to let you ignore the fact that the Union launched the invasion of another Nation's territory.
I'm also not going to accept your incorrect premise that Ft. Sumter belonged to Washington D.C. It was part of the land of South Carolina, and therefore it belonged to the people of South Carolina when they saw fit to remove themselves from the Union.
Washington D.C. had a claim to expenses, but not the land or occupation of it.
The second "straw" part is your notion that somehow war could "protect the pocketbooks of New England." It did no such thing, since cotton & other exports from Confederate states were cut off 100%.
But in 1861, no one knew how long the Southern States would remain independent. Most assumed the Union would whip them quickly, and business would be back to usual. People thought they would be dealing with short term losses, and thereafter long term resumption of the conditions extant prior to the conflict.
They were expecting to resume receiving all that wonderful import trade created through Southern production. They also realized that the Blockade (Militarily pointless, but economically critical) would prevent the creation and establishment of Southern trade with Europe.
And yet... and yet... somehow they survived economically, adjusted, found new business models and, by war's end, were prospering more than ever, but no thanks to Southern cotton.
But you are leaving out the part of what would have happened to them without the blockade. Take just a moment and try to find a rare bit of objectivity in your thinking, and consider what would have happened to Northern trade with Europe if Southern ports were allowed to remain open.
Assume 90% of European Trade went to Charleston and Savanna instead of New York. *THAT* is what they were facing in absence of the blockade. Now maybe at first it wouldn't have been 90%. But year after year, as incoming capital accumulated, Charleston would have expanded and improved it's port facilities, warehouses, and the region, spurred by capital infusion, would have bolstered it's own manufacturing and production.
Over time, it would take a serious bite out of New York's commerce.
You are thinking too short sighted. You are trying to analyze events in terms of what did happened, and you are avoiding what they would have looked like in the absence of conflict. In the absence of Conflict, New York would have taken a major financial hit. Conflict is what prevented New York from taking that hit. It kept Southern competition and capitalization in check.
Oh, and the Government was running on Debt in those years. Looks like Deficit Spending was pump priming much of their economy back in those days.
I wonder if the Government running massive deficits is another area in which we can thank the civil war for our current mess?
So how many times do we need to review the real facts of history, as opposed to your pro-Confederate wet dreams?
The Union launched nothing -- zero, zip, nada -- until months after the Confederacy:
All that happened long before a single Confederate soldier was killed directly in battle with any Union force, and before a single Union army invaded any Confederate state.
Bottom line: the Confederacy was at war against the United States long before the United States began to respond.
DiogenesLamp: "I'm also not going to accept your incorrect premise that Ft. Sumter belonged to Washington D.C.
It was part of the land of South Carolina, and therefore it belonged to the people of South Carolina when they saw fit to remove themselves from the Union.
Washington D.C. had a claim to expenses, but not the land or occupation of it."
Total rubbish, and you should well know it by now, since many posters have linked to copies of the 1836 document by which South Carolina ceded the property to the United States.
Here is one link, the important language being:
DiogenesLamp: "They were expecting to resume receiving all that wonderful import trade created through Southern production.
They also realized that the Blockade (Militarily pointless, but economically critical) would prevent the creation and establishment of Southern trade with Europe."
In fact, in 1861 the Union blockade of Confederate states was nearly useless, as 90% of ships sailing to or from the Confederacy got through.
By 1862 that number was reduced to 80% and by war's end, just 30%.
But in the first year of war, what the Confederacy truly wanted to export or import, it did, and that included some cotton, despite a reported burning of 2.5 million bales by Confederates, to embargo Britain & France.
King Cotton diplomacy, it was called.
Regardless, the fact is that Northerners most closely allied economically with Southern cotton growers were Democrats whose house organ, the New York Herald, was highly critical of Republicans and supportive of peace efforts towards the Confederacy.
Those Democrats in no way pushed for Civil War, and were slow in supporting it when it came.
Many Democrats never did support the war and became known colloquially as "copperheads"
So you cannot blame Civil War on Northern manufacturers in need of Southern cotton -- those Democrats were the "peaceniks" of their day.
DiogenesLamp: "But you are leaving out the part of what would have happened to them without the blockade.
Take just a moment and try to find a rare bit of objectivity in your thinking, and consider what would have happened to Northern trade with Europe if Southern ports were allowed to remain open."
Objectivity? Coming from DiogenesLamp, that's rich.
Here's what you have to remember: the Confederacy itself declared an embargo on export of its #1 commodity, cotton.
Their reason was to create a "cotton famine" in Europe, to force Britain, France & others to formally recognize the Confederacy.
They even burned about 2.5 million bales, about half the crop in a normal year.
No Northerner forced them to do that, and in 1861 the Union blockade was stopping only 10% of ships trying to run it.
So the Confederacy did it to themselves: from cotton exports around $191 million in 1860, by war's end it was nearing zero.
DiogenesLamp: "Assume 90% of European Trade went to Charleston and Savanna instead of New York.
*THAT* is what they were facing in absence of the blockade.
Now maybe at first it wouldn't have been 90%...."
Sorry, but that's an insane idea, since there's no reason to suppose Charleston would be the "go to" port of a prosperous Confederacy long at peace.
Any number of other Southern ports were already far more important than Charleston in 1860, including Baltimore, New Orleans and Mobile.
Other ports like Norfolk in Virginia, Savanah in Georgia, Pensacola in Florida and, say, Galveston in Texas -- all had equal claim as Charleston to being important ports of Confederate trade.
But only New Orleans & Baltimore could rival Northern ports like New York, Philadelphia and Boston, and those only because much of their trade came from & went to Northerners.
And as soon as you start talking about "long term effects" of Confederate "free trade", assuming peace, then you have to factor in peaceful but powerful moves the Union could make -- chief amongst them lowering its tariffs to match the Confederacy's.
DiogenesLamp: "In the absence of Conflict, New York would have taken a major financial hit.
Conflict is what prevented New York from taking that hit.
It kept Southern competition and capitalization in check."
Nonsense.
Civil War brought Northern trade with the Confederacy to a near 100% halt, and so ruined innumerable Northern businesses.
That was the price of war they had not wanted to pay.
But the war changed everything, and where some doors were slammed in Northern faces, other doors soon opened up, and by war's end Union cities were more prosperous than ever before, on the whole.
DiogenesLamp: "Oh, and the Government was running on Debt in those years.
Looks like Deficit Spending was pump priming much of their economy back in those days.
I wonder if the Government running massive deficits is another area in which we can thank the civil war for our current mess?"
No, hardly, since from Day One, the US has fought every war with borrowed money, especially the Revolutionary War.
Indeed, the huge Revolutionary War debt was a driving factor in the 1787 Constitutional Convention.
Our Founders wanted a Federal government which could take charge of, and pay off, all its debts from the war.
And that has been it's intention ever since.