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PeaRidge: "The declaration would likely look like this:
From the archives of the Government of the Confederate States of America.
On this date the Confederate Congress voted in the majority to declare war on the United States of America."

An Act Recognizing the existence of war..."

You are mistaken in your effort to impose a different standard on "declarations of war" than the historic record supports.
The truth is, you know very well the Confederacy issued a declaration of war, you just don't wish to call it that -- in the same way that Confederates wished to call slavery a "domestic institution".
You wish to nit-pick the wording, to assert that the Confederate declaration was not really a declaration, it was just a... well... a "recognition".

But regardless of whether you call it a "declaration" or "acknowledgement" or "recognition", the result is the same: Confederate President Jefferson Davis was granted war-powers and the entire Confederacy was put on a war-making basis.
Plus the Confederate Army was increased from 100,000 to 500,000 troops.
This at a time when the US army was still barely 15,000 troops.

So the historical reality on this subject is:

From December 1860 through April 1861 the Confederacy continually provoked war through dozens of seizures by force of major Federal properties -- forts, ships, arsenals, mints, etc. -- threats against and firings on Union officials.
In April 1861 the Confederacy started war at Union Fort Sumter through a military assault resulting in some Union deaths and forcing the remainder to surrender.
On May 6, 1861 the Confederacy formally declared war on the United States and sent military aid to pro-Confederates in Union Missouri.
All this happened before a single Confederate soldier was killed directly in battle with any Union force, and before any Union Army invaded a single Confederate state.
By the time that first Confederate soldier (Pvt. Henry Wyatt) was killed in the Battle of Big Bethel, on June 10, 1861, dozens of Union troops had been killed, over a hundred wounded and 500 captured as POWs.

Bottom line: the Confederacy began making war six months before the Union did anything serious in response.