If they are squatters, and it's your house, and you are willing to accept the damage, then maybe so. I would think there are better ways, but some people are not so cool headed as myself.
Ft. Sumter was a United States fort, built with federal money, on land deeded to the federal government by South Carolina.
I don't hear you making a case for remuneration to the British for their forts. How about we use an objective standard for all this stuff?
Behavior which is acceptable for the Rebellion against the English Union, ought to be likewise acceptable for Rebellion against the American Union.
Secession, even if legal (which it wasn't) doesn't magically transfer property rights. And isn't property rights what this was all about?
Imminent Domain Baby!
But this isn't even about property rights or a particular fort. I'm pretty sure the Yanks didn't give a tinker's D@mn about the fort, After the war, they didn't use it for sh*t.
The real issue at hand was having their toy taken away from them.
You may think the Civil war was fought over high principals and lofty goals, but from my perspective it was nothing but an Ego driven pissing contest by both sides. It was merely an American re-creation of the never ending European wars between belligerent princes.
The real tragedy of the Civil war was that so many people really died for nothing. It was simply a farce that became rationalized after the fact into something "noble".
In the meantime it left us with this massive Federal Leviathan and no means of escape from it.
The British ceded their forts by negotiated treaty, not by us shelling them until they left. And they held on to several forts until long after the Treaty of Paris, until Jay's Treaty was signed in 1794.
After the war, they didn't use it for sh*t.
After the war, the fort was in ruins. It was rebuilt, though, and 100 pound Parrott Rifles were installed. During the Spanish-American War, further improvements were made. It did what it was built to do, protect Charleston, and it eventually went the way of scores of other massive coastal fortifications all along the US seaboards and become obsolete.
The fate of the British forts - and who owned Manhattan and all your other analogies - was settled by the Treaty of Paris signed by the U.S. and Great Britain in 1783 after negotiations between the two. What similar transaction switched ownership of Sumter from the U.S. government to the state of South Carolina?
Imminent Domain Baby!
Assuming that you mean eminent domain, that does not allow the states to seize federal property any more than it allows the federal government to seize state property. It applies to private property only. And even if it did allow for the seizure of federal property there is that little matter of 'without just compensation' that you're ignoring.
The real tragedy of the Civil war was that so many people really died for nothing. It was simply a farce that became rationalized after the fact into something "noble".
I can't really argue with you on that one. A rebellion over slavery? Hundreds of thousands dead as a result? I can't think of another instance where a section rebelled over something that trivial.