It was Lincoln’s decision whether to allow the peaceful secession to stand or whether to retain the South by force. His insistence on maintaining Union forts within the territory of the former states cannot indicate anything other than that he intended to retain them by force. The Confederacy may have fired the first bombardment, but Lincoln was strolling down the path of war by refusing to abandon Sumter once South Carolina left the Union.
Lincoln (and Buchanan) did not recognize that SC had left the Union.
Here's the rub. You and I (and Lincoln and Buchanan) are all in agreement that any people anywhere have a legitimate moral right to revolt against their rulers if they feel they are oppressed. But what you are saying is that if anybody else (of the same People) disagree, they must simply submit and not have the same right to fight for what they believe in.
IOW, if in 1968 there had been a true attempt at revolution by lefties, or if there were one today, those of us who prefer the Constitution and the system it set up would have had no right to resist them.
The Loyalists of 1776 had every bit as much moral right to fight for their beliefs as the Patriots did. Some Loyalists no doubt fought on the side they did out of impure motives, such as who they expected to win. But then so did some of the Patriots.
Similarly, in 1861 there were honorable men and scoundrels on both sides, but the men of honor on both sides had a legitimate moral right to fight to defend what they believed in.
See that's what happens when you "appeal to arms," as the secessionists called it. Sometimes you lose the appeal, and when you do, you have no right left to claim the moral high ground.
Or, as Arnold put it in Twins, "Negotiate first, attack last."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGstM8QMCjQ
The CSA chose to attack instead of negotiating, because they needed to knock the Upper South and Border states off the fence. It didn't work out any better for them than it did in the movie. Just took longer.
Sorry, but you have it backwards.
Federal property remained Federal property regardless of what certain secessionists declared.
Secessionists' early 1861 seizures of Federal properties were all acts of rebellion or war.
Then Confederates' April 12 military assault on Federal troops in Federal Fort Sumter was a major act of war against the United States, equivalent to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
And Lincoln's original proclamation after Fort Sumter specified only
To which the Confederacy responded with a formal declaration of war against the United States on May 6, 1861.
At that point, Lincoln's only decision to make was: victory or defeat.
Lincoln chose victory.
Trod Upon: "Lincoln was strolling down the path of war by refusing to abandon Sumter once South Carolina left the Union."
Remember, the British held onto forts in United States Northwest Territory for over 30 years -- from the end of the Revolutionary War until the end of the War of 1812.
However irritating those forts might have been to our Founders, they never made British-controlled forts an excuse for starting war.
So the choice for war was made by Jefferson Davis, eagerly pushed on by Fire Eaters and many others of the Southern Slave Power.