jeff davis himself explained it many years later. He used an analogy. He said that if an arm is raised and holding a gun pointed at you, of course you will knock that arm away. That was his explanation for the south making the first strike at Sumner. But he wasn’t very bright. He probably went to his grave not ever realizing that that gun wasn’t loaded. Lincoln suckered him.
IMO Davis fire on Fort Sumter not because it was a military threat, but because the American Flag over that fort was an affront to the concept of the Confederate States of America.
“How dare the U.S. continue to show its flag in our country.”
I would liken it to how the Cubans might view the U.S. flag over Guantanamo Bay. They only real difference is the Cubans are not willing to start a war over it. Davis was.
When one has a gun pointed at one, one does not waste a great deal of time wondering whether or not it is loaded. One presumes that it is, or soon will be.
As long as that fortress overlooked the entrance of Charleston South Carolina (the primary port in the Confederacy) it would always induce worry and concern as to what it might do.
A more apt analogy for what Ft. Sumter represented would be a "Sword of Damocles".
Lincoln suckered him.
And of that, I have become convinced. Lincoln was a very shrewd operator and had an amazing talent for manipulating and predicting his opposition's moves. He did it in the courtroom and he did it in his election races quite a lot.
But in the case of the civil war, he was too smart by half.