Fort Sumpter was a federal presence in the newly independent Confederate States—which had LAWFULLY seceded from the USA. There is nothing in the US Constitution that forbids secession—or the states would of never signed onto it back in 1789. (New England states were some of the first to talk secession earlier, over other issues—and no one indicated that was illegal).
The US command at Fort Sumpter was asked to leave, by lawful authority...and they refused. Therefore, as far as the Confederacy was concerned Fort Sumpter’s officer’s insistence on staying in SC was the cause of war, NOT the Confederacy’s use of force to extract them.
Personally, I think it was a STUPID move on the part of Confederates Beauregard et als., BUT, if secession was legal (and I believe it was and is...) it was NOT unlawful.
I think economically, the South would of suffered if secession was allowed to stand. Slavery was dying out, the international slave trade was effectively over—and already the more efficient industrialized North was beating the South in economic growth—and that trend would of continued. I don’t think the South ever would of grovelled for re-institution into the Union, however, once slavery was gone—there’d be no logical reason not to re-unify.
Still the fact remains, the North did not go to war to end slavery, even though the South seceded to protect it. The North’s political goal was union. And forced union we have...at a cost of so many lives.
Our Constitution depended on voluntary union, and a weak federal government. Since the Civil War we have had neither.
Good post.