- Jan 3rd - US Ft Pulaski & Ft Jackson, Savannah, seized by Georgia
Georgia seceded on January 19
- Jan 4th - US Ft Morgan, Mobile, seized by Alabama
Alabama seceded on January 11
- Jan 5th - Alabama troops seize Forts Morgan & Gaines at Mobile Bay
Alabama seceded on January 11
- Jan 6th - Florida troops seize Federal arsenal at Apalachicola
Florida seceded on January 10
- Jan 7th - Florida troops takeover Ft Marion at St Augustine
Florida seceded on January 10
- Jan 10th - Ft Jackson & Ft Philip are taken over by LA state troops "
Louisiana seceded on January 26
You understand, I suppose, the debate here is: "who started it?" -- was it a "war of northern aggression" or a "war of southern rebellion"?
Seems to me the data you've provided us proves my point -- that it was a "war of southern rebellion," since in every case you cite, the fort was seized BEFORE the state had even seceded.
So there's no legal definition even conceivable to assert those forts were somehow SOUTHERN property before a state seceded.
Further, the use of force was made by the South against Federal property with no resistance from the North. This cannot be "northern agression."
You quote Harper's Weekly saying the Georgia governor seized Fort Pulaski "to prevent federal troops from taking it."
Say what? Were there no troops already IN the fort? And is that not an act of armed rebellion, especially BEFORE secession?
Obviously, the South WAS in rebellion even before it seceded, and was determined to use military force in situations where the Founding Fathers had spent years in patient negotiations, after the war, to remove British forces from the United States.
"Secession was not outlawed in the Constitution."
But rebellion, insurrection and domestic violence are outlawed in the Constitution. Peaceful secession, where both parties negotiate and agree to terms may be one thing. Use of military force against the United States is something else altogether.
face it "Bro", you have a "non starter" there, that is NEITHER truthful nor logical. instead, it is simply FOOLISH & UN-educated.
had ANY of the original states believed that "once in, never out" was the rule, NONE of the 13 states would have joined that (highly experimental) union.
free dixie,sw
Although most states had not officially seceded, it was almost certain those states were going out of the Union. Forts and armories were taken by those states to prevent them being used against the states in case they did secede and to prevent them from being taken by mobs of Southerners. States have a basic right to protect their state and their people. In some cases receipts were given to the Feds for arms and equipment taken.
Northern actions had already pushed Southerners over the edge. John Brown's raid to incite a slave rebellion had been widely praised by Northerners. Abolitionists burned cities in Texas and fomented slave rebellion in the summer of 1860. Basically, parts of Dallas, Denton, Pilot Point, Belknap, Gainesville, Black-jack Grove, Kaufman, Navarro, Waxahachie, Henderson, Jefferson, Tyler, Georgetown, Bright Star, and Austin either burned or suffered arson attacks that were thwarted. Many of these attacks happened on the same day. A number of the arsonists were caught and confessed.
These actions matched what abolitionist groups had been proposing be done to the South. On December 14, 1859 on the floor of the House, Clement Vallandigham read the contents of an antislavery circular that had been "extensively circulated throughout the northern, western, and southern States of this Union, and which contains the plans of associations to be formed for the purpose of carrying on armed hostilities against a portion of this Confederacy." Among the circular’s contents:
Our plan is –
1. To make war (openly or secretly, as circumstances may dictate,) upon the property of the slaveholders and their abettors – not for its destruction, if that can be easily avoided, but to convert it to the use of the slaves. If it cannot be converted, then we advise its destruction. Teach the slaves to burn their master’s buildings, to kill their cattle and horses, to conceal or destroy farming utensils, to abandon labor in seed-time and harvest, and let crops perish. Make slavery unprofitable in this way if it can be done in no other.
That's exactly what happened in Texas in the summer of 1860.
Obviously, the South WAS in rebellion even before it seceded, and was determined to use military force in situations where the Founding Fathers had spent years in patient negotiations, after the war, to remove British forces from the United States.
The South had spent far more years than that arguing peaceably that the personal liberty laws of many Northern states violated the Constitution with respect to the return of fugitive slaves. Here is what some distinguished Massachusetts lawyers said about their personal liberty laws (From the Philadelphia Public Ledger of December 20, 1860; my bold font below):
THE CITIZENS OF MASSACHUSETTS AND THE PERSONAL LIBERTY BILLS
Chief Justice Shaw, B. R. Curtis, Joel Parker, and other citizens of Massachusetts equally distinguished, have addressed a letter to the people of that State on the Personal Liberty Bills, which they declare to be unconstitutional. They urge strongly the repeal of them and say:
... We would repeal them under our own love of right; under our own sense of sacredness of compacts; ...
... we firmly believe that the men from whom the worst consequences to our country and ourselves are likely to proceed, have no wish that these laws should be repealed, and no disposition to use any threats in reference to them. On the contrary, they desire to have them stand as conspicuous and palpable breaches of the national compact by ourselves ...
Shaw was Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court. Curtis was a former Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court who resigned in protest of the Dred Scott decision. Parker was professor of constitutional law at Harvard and former Chief Justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court.
Here is one example of appeal to the court system against this Northern nullification of the Constitution. From Prigg v. Pennsylvania (SCOTUS, 1842; my bold again):
The clause manifestly contemplates the existence of a positive, unqualified right on the part of the owner of the slave, which no state law or regulation can in any way qualify, regulate, control or restrain. The slave is not to be discharged from service or labor, in consequence of any state law or regulation. Now certainly, without indulging in any nicety of criticism upon words, it may be fairly said, that any state law or state regulation which interrupts, limits, delays, or postpones the right of the owner of the slave to the immediate possession of the slave, and the immediate command of his service and labor, operates, pro tanto, a discharge of the slave therefrom.
Northern States kept flaunting the Constitution. The last fugitive slave returned from Massachusetts was in 1854 and large numbers of them were living openly in some communities in the North. A thousand fugitive slaves living openly in Chicago left for Canada when the Lincoln administration started enforcing the fugitive slave law there in early April 1861.
Once Southern states started seceding, several Northern states amended or repealed their personal liberty laws. But it was too late. The years of nullification of the Constitution by Northern states had tilted the scale toward secession.
Say what? Were there no troops already IN the fort?
Interesting question. I looked it up and found this interesting National Parks Service web site that explains what was going on. [Link] (The answer is no, there were no federal troops in the fort.)
This site says there were two men at Fort Pulaski at the time the Georgia militia took it over on January 3. http://ourgeorgiahistory.com/wars/Civil_War/ftpulaski.html