Replies

PeaBrain: "If you continue to posit your war beginning canard, you will receive this same document every time."

But regardless of how often you post it, it's still irrelevant to this discussion, because that document only addresses, for certain legal purposes, when the US government first responded (still with words, not bullets!) to actual Confederate acts of war against it.

I take my instructions from the words of President Roosevelt on December 8, 1941 when he said:

"I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, Dec. 7, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese empire."

Those same words could equally apply to Fort Sumter: since the Confederate assault on April 12, 1861 a state of war had existed.

Actual wars begin when soldiers battle enemies, not when politicians sign paperwork.
And as we've seen in more recent years, even years and years can pass by with one side fully engaged in war against and enemy who refuses to recognize war or respond in kind.
But it's still a war, even if we deny it.

The only event related to a declaration of war was Lincoln's issuance of personnel call up and a blockade of Charleston. These commands were signed by President Lincoln on April 17-19, 1861, ordered the Secretary of State to affix the seal of the United States to his proclamation blockading the South, and thus made it official. Under international law of the era, declaration of a blockade is an act of war, and thus after the conflict the United States Supreme Court held the institution of the blockade to constitute the legal commencement of the Civil War.

No doubt you may be inclined to rely on your choice of historians for their opinions....the libraries and Google are full of them. However, for the purposes of consummation of war time issues, the United States government itself affixed the beginning on Lincoln's actions, with no transactional relationship to Charleston Harbor.

Brojoke: “But regardless of how often you post it, it's still irrelevant to this discussion, because that document only addresses, for certain legal purposes, when the US government first responded (still with words, not bullets!) to actual Confederate acts of war against it.”

No, that document, as you put it, is a Supreme Court ruling affixing the date of the beginning of the war.

It occurred in Lincoln's office.