The James Gang? Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid? A lot of people could declare that they no longer want to associate with the rest of the country. The country doesn't take that declaration as a severing of ties between that group and the rest of us.
What "Principle" can be deciphered from this? Had the invasion force been in the planning stage when Lincoln Assumed office, you could discern from this that he was acting on the principle that he believed secession was illegal, and that it was his duty to oppose it, but he did no such thing. Indeed, it would have been politically unpalatable for him to start forming an invasion force at this time. Not even the Northern States would have tolerated it. Instead, he waited till he had an incident around which to rally political support, and then he launched an invasion.
You're really stuck on that. Rightly or wrongly, John Kennedy thought Cuba shouldn't have missiles pointed at the United States. Would he have been justified in immediately attacking Cuba with nuclear missiles or invading it? Or was it wiser to give negotiations a try?
It also looks like you are channeling Jefferson Davis. Davis believed he was right and believed that his principle justified his beginning a war. Lincoln didn't (or at least, he didn't let his convictions convince him to shoot first). Perhaps because he recognized that in real life different principles conflict. Perhaps he recognized that believing you're right doesn't mean acting immediately and forcefully on that conviction is always the wisest thing to do. Give him some credit for that. I can believe that something is right in principle but reject vigilante action, because that is against another of my principles.
Without the Attack on Ft. Sumter, what has he got to work with? No support in the North for a confrontation, Defacto Southern Government taking over Sovereign responsibilities in those states. Time will only solidify these circumstances. A War is the only thing which could rescue his situation.
Again, you are putting your conclusion in your premise. Everything that I've seen suggests that Lincoln assumed that unionist sentiment in the South was stronger than it actually was, and that time was on his own side. He was wrong, I'm pretty sure, but his belief suggests that he thought time was on his side and that if he held out cooler heads would prevail and reconcile the two regions. With hindsight we can say that wouldn't happen, but that doesn't change what he thought. I suppose it's possible that it was all talk and that Lincoln didn't really believe it, but for now I'm going by what he said, and not by some image of "Evil Abe."
I'm not at all certain that Lincoln would have been desperate to avoid a stand-off that eventually was resolved peacefully, though. That's your conclusion with hindsight, but I'm not sure that if both sides had avoided a shooting war and if the situation was going badly for the Union, a peaceful solution of the stand-off might not have been engineered. Who can answer that with any authority?
A negotiated settlement might have involved Davis having to do without the Upper South states, which could be why he started the war. I'm not so sure that time actually was on Davis's side, else why did he try to accelerate things with a war?
The South fired on Ft. Sumter because it offended their sense of pride, honor, or what have you.
Also, rage, anger, and a concept of sovereignty.
For the South it was "Freedom" and "Defending your Homeland." For the North it was "Preserving the Union, and Freeing the Slaves." (Neither of which had any emotional significance prior to the war.)
Read Daniel Webster's speeches and Henry Clay's. Preserving the union was an idea that had had a grip on many for years, even decades. Why do you think the Compromise of 1850 was such an impassioned event?
While we're at it, "Defending your Homeland" may have been a twist the war brought. There were fears of slave revolt, racial wars, and abolitionist subversion long before there was a Union Army threat to any Confederate "Homeland." There's a very complicated relationship between the passionate fear of abolitionists, slave revolts, and race war that was brewing before the war and any simple straightforward "Defense of the Homeland" that common soldiers might have believed in. Also, for "Freedom" you might say "Independence." Otherwise it can get very complicated.
Exactly. It was all about Insults and hurt feelings on both sides. (at first.) Then it became Revenge(North) and Survival(South) respectively.
Hurt feelings and revenge went together in the beginning. Afterward the conviction grew in the North that it was a war for freedom or liberation. I think we agree a lot about this, but I'm a little wary about the way that we diminish or dismiss feelings and convictions that we don't share today. Modern day libertarians who don't understand 19th century national feeling (and sometimes don't actually care much about the liberty of some groups of people) are naturally going to brush aside emotions that were passionately felt at the time. You could say our war with Japan was all about revenge for Pearl Harbor, but that was only one aspect of what we were fighting for.
The Two key pieces of evidence my friend told me about are this. Lincoln dismissed a plan to resupply the fort Covertly by sea, and instead insisted on sending a letter notifying the Confederate government that a wagon supply train would be sent to supply the fort on a certain date.
Another letter was sent to Commander Anderson (From Sec War Stanton) informing him that he would likely soon be attacked, and that he was to take all necessary steps to preserve life, and then surrender his Fort if his position was untenable.
I don't understand. The fort was at sea, wasn't it? And the federals didn't control land nearby, did they? So how could resupply have been by wagon train -- even at low tide?
Lincoln did send a letter to Governor Pickens letting him know that the supplies were on their way, and that he wouldn't reinforce the garrison with new troops if the governor didn't fire on the fort. He also wrote a letter to Major Anderson. The likely context is that war could start, but I don't see any overt mention of a possible attack or war or anything nefarious in it.
I haven't seen a letter from Stanton to Anderson, but presumably various contingencies have to be considered beforehand. Strategists and historians talk about the "fog of war" -- all the uncertainties and unknowns involved in large scale campaigns. Polemically and with hindsight you may be able to "find" some straight line of maneuvering carried to success, but if you're looking at what people knew or could expect at the time such conclusions look very, very "iffy."
My understanding is that Lincoln’s letter notified the local officials that the supply ship would be unarmed.