So it's okay if you win? Moral principles are validated by force? Got it. Good to know. But wait. Isn't that the same principle the slavers used?
Right, and when you lob hot shot into the fort, setting fires to the wooden buildings and gates, gutting the fort and threatening to set off the magazine, that was all carefully aimed so that no one could possibly be hurt.
It seems to me that if I wanted to get people to leave without killing them outright, setting fire to wooden structures might be a pretty good way to do it. Once again, I point to the fact that nobody was killed by either side. Nobody WANTED to kill anyone on either side.
The fact that no one was killed is no more a defense for southern actions than when a bank robber shoots at police but claims that he's innocent because he didn't hit anyone.
Except that these weren't the police, they were more akin to squatters who stubbornly insisted on remaining on land where they were not welcome. They had already given up Fort Moultrie, so the principle that they would evacuate was already established.
Here's what the inside of the fort looked like after Anderson surrendered:
Doesn't look Gutted to me. And your point is?
Once again, no bloodshed till the North decided to retaliate, and it is my impression that it had more to do with hurt feelings over being humiliated than anything else.
It has long been my suspicion that the entire civil war was nothing but a stupid pissing contest, to which the claim of "Freeing the Slaves" was added after the fact to justify why a bunch of @$$holes ramped up a war which killed 3/4ths of a million people.
Once you've shed that much blood, you better come up with a D@mn good reason for doing it. Unfortunately the truth is real ugly. They didn't have a good reason other than hurt egos.
Throwing a molotov cocktail through someone's picture window might be a pretty good way to make people leave a house, too.
Except that these weren't the police, they were more akin to squatters who stubbornly insisted on remaining on land where they were not welcome.
Ft. Sumter was a United States fort, built with federal money, on land deeded to the federal government by South Carolina. Secession, even if legal (which it wasn't) doesn't magically transfer property rights. And isn't property rights what this was all about?
They had already given up Fort Moultrie, so the principle that they would evacuate was already established.
Sort of like saying that since you've already stolen one part of my property by making me fear for my safety, I might as well just hand over the rest, the principle being established and all. And just to help me think faster, you'll set my place on fire.