Thank you, Becky Sue. The fact that there are honest differences over this 149 years later indicates it was not a cut and dried situation. Part of that is due to the way history has been presented through the years. I am sure there has been objective work done on the subject, using original documents as sources, but I don’t see any of that scholarship exhibited here.
I had two semesters of History of the South under Grady McWhiney at Millsaps College in Jackson, MS. One of his colleagues was T. Harry Williams, at Louisiana State University. They were two of the best.
As I remember Dr. McWhiney put the flash point on the tariff and Ft. Sumpter was a tariff collection point. Slavery was the issue with emotional appeal and was stressed by the North to arouse people against the South and that version has survived through history for that reason.
Sumter was a defensive fortification, not a tariff collection point.
If that is the case, Dr. McWhiney taught you some very bad history. Ft. Sumter was never a customs collection point. In fact, Ft. Sumter was never really an operating military base. It was sill under construction when Major Anderson evacuated his small garrison from an indefensable position at Fort Moultrie.
The Customs House was in downtown Charleston, and was already siezed by the Confederates.