Posted on 11/03/2015 6:52:26 AM PST by don-o
Just as much as New York belonged to the United States when it broke from England.
If it was their land and their property, as you claim, then why would they offer to pay for it?
They were offering to pay for the Union investment in constructing the fort. Not for the land itself, which remained the sovereign property of the State in which it was located. The Union built the fort legally and invested some quantity of money in it's construction.
The offer was to remunerate for those expenses.
But they didn't. They chose to start a war over the toy. Kind of foolish of them, don't you think?
While you love your husband, you might not object to his hand on your knee. When you are getting a divorce from him, how many women would be content to leave it there?
Your argument is that he has a right to keep his presence on your body.
It belonged to the Federal government until the people in whose state it was located decided to assert their natural law right to leave that union.
Thereafter it no longer belonged to the Federal Government. It was the Property of South Carolina before the Union was created, and it remained the property of South Carolina when the Union was abrogated.
Americans were given an opportunity to create a society without the previous baggage such as Aristocracy and religious intolerance which had so set the European nations against one another.
We succeeded... at first.
Yeah but I love to watch you go through all those contortions trying to prove you point. It never gets old.
Sumter was negotiated by the state of South Carolina and the federal government. The land was ceded in perpetuity because the state wanted the protection - but didn't want to pay for it. They made a deal but apparently didn't possess the integrity to hold up their end of the bargain.
Amusing the lengths these klowns will go to in order to excuse the lawless actions of the slavers.
If you think those are contortions, you likely don't have the necessary knowledge/intellect to engage in conversation on this topic.
No, it's pretty straightforward.
No it was the property of the federal government. Otherwise why would the South Carolina legislature cede all claims to the land? And why would the Constitution say that Congress would exercise exclusive control over "...all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings..."? Sumter belonged to the Federal government. It wasn't a loan. It wasn't jointly owned between the government and the state. South Carolina had no legitimate claim to the property.
They were offering to pay for the Union investment in constructing the fort.
OK even if the claim that there was an offer to pay for anything was true, you're saying that the fort belonged to the Federal government but the land belonged to the state? Even though the legislature had ceded all claims for the property to the federal government? So what changed the ownership of the land back to South Carolina? And if the fort belonged to the Feds then why couldn't they remain in their property if they wanted?
While you love your husband, you might not object to his hand on your knee. When you are getting a divorce from him, how many women would be content to leave it there?
How many women walk away from debts they helped run up, take all the community property they can get their hands on, and then shoot at their husband for a day or so on their way out of the marriage? Wouldn't that leave the husband pretty angry?
Your argument is that he has a right to keep his presence on your body.
Not at all, as ridiculous as that analogy is.
But only the land, remember. Even though I highly doubt that you can quote the rule of law that magically changed ownership of anything back to South Carolina, you have stated that the fort itself still belonged to the federal government. So why couldn't they stay there?
How about you grow up someday? Again, you argue like an infantile little brat who hasn't got his @$$ spanked enough.
They ceded perpetually all claims to the land to an entity which ceased to exist; That entity being the "Union" of which South Carolina is a part.
When South Carolina broke away, the Entity to which the land was ceded ceased to exist as a legal/moral matter.
How many women walk away from debts they helped run up, take all the community property they can get their hands on, and then shoot at their husband for a day or so on their way out of the marriage?
Is "All of them" a good answer? :)
Why couldn't the British stay in New York? Didn't they build the forts there?
Well, no. The act of the legislature said they were ceding "...to the United States, all the right, title and claim of South Carolina to the site of Fort Sumter and the requisite quantity of adjacent territory." The United States did not cease to exist, even if South Carolina's secession had been legal. The act of the legislature was still in effect.
Is "All of them" a good answer? :)
Well my boyfriend is a divorce family law attorney and he'd probably agree with you that many of them try. And when they do he gets paid a lot to make sure they aren't successful. Maybe if the Confederacy had turned to him for their "divorce" it might have turned out better for them?
Because under the Treaty of Paris they agreed to give them up. Was there a "Treaty of Bubba" that turned the federal forts over to the Confederacy?
In fact, the garrison at Fort Sumter in 1861 was relatively equivalent, compared to the total US Army, to the military at Pearl Harbor in 1941.
What you forget was that the US Army in 1861 was barely 17,000 with most scattered in small forts out west.
So Fort Sumter was the strongest, most expensive military post in the Southeast, and its loss was relatively equivalent to the destruction of Pearl Harbor in 1941.
Indeed, when you consider that total US forces in 1941 neared 1.7 million, compared to just 17,000 in 1861, the loss of two and wounding of four Union troops was also in the order of magnitude to personnel losses at Pearl Harbor, percentage-wise.
DiogenesLamp: "Nobody got hurt when the Confederates took back their land."
Two Union troops were killed, four seriously wounded.
Fort Sumter was not the Confederates' to take, period, any more than today's US base at Guantanamo Bay belongs to Cuba.
If the Communist Cubans assault US forces at Guantanamo, it will be an act of war, just as was the Confederate assault on Fort Sumter.
DiogenesLamp: "The property, which belonged to their state, did not constitute any sort of threat to the Union, nor did it represent any substantial value or interest.
They had fully intended to pay for it, but the Union government insisted on being recalcitrant and unreasonable."
Fort Sumter was built by, and lawfully deeded over to the Federal Government many years before 1861.
It was no more the property of the Confederacy to claim than is Guantanamo Bay the Communist Cubans today.
The Confederate assault on Fort Sumter was just as much an act of war against the United States as the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.
Both attacks fully explain the reason for the beginning of the US war against those enemies.
Finally, it's important to mention again those British forts on US territory after the Revolutionary War.
Altogether there were several in New York and Michigan, some of which remained in British hands until 1814, over 30 years after the British surrender at Yorktown.
At no time did these British forts become a casus-belli for the US government, which waited patiently until their evacuation by Britain could be negotiated peacefully.
That is the historical model the Confederacy should have followed, if it seriously wanted to avoid war, which, of course, it did not.
No, war was only "inevitable" if the Confederacy wanted it.
As Lincoln promised them in his First Inaugural address, Confederates could not have a war unless they themselves started it.
Lincoln would not start war.
But what Lincoln did do was attempt to repeat out-going President Buchanan's efforts in January, 1861, to resupply Fort Sumter by sea.
Buchanan's civilian resupply ship was fired on by South Carolina forces and retreated, mission not accomplished.
So Lincoln sent a stronger naval force in hopes that it might break through Confederate artillery.
In that Lincoln was wrong, because the Confederacy had long since decided to take Sumter by force, if it refused to surrender.
So Lincoln's resupply mission was in no way adequate for the task.
Bottom line: the Confederacy started Civil War over Fort Sumter, and that was a big mistake for them, but they apparently never once had second thoughts about it, and refused to sue for peace until their military was thoroughly defeated and forced into unconditional surrender.
Sorry for the typo, see post above.
The hit dog howls.
(one of the truly wonderful aphorisms that I learned from a lost causer ;’)
Not to mention the fact that all around the harbor, all of the various and sundry fortifications were busy for weeks reinforcing, re-enforcing and refortifying. All of them adding artillery piece after artillery piece of every sort and size, all pointed directly at Fort Sumter. I think they maxed out the capacity for any spot that could hold an artillery piece that could strike Sumter.
Actually, no, the Brits themselves had already fought their war of revolution to establish the supremacy of Parliament, not the King, over Brits, and to protect the natural rights of Englishmen.
These natural rights were not foreign to Brits, they were inherent in being an Englishman, and that is what American colonists considered themselves -- Englishmen.
So, what the American colonists wanted in the years before 1776 was not something new and different, they wanted the same things every Englishman had by right, beginning with: no taxation without representation.
And it wasn't just the King who refused to grant them, it was also the majority party in Parliament, who then revoked the old Massachusetts charter and declared the colony in rebellion -- effectively a declaration of war nearly two years BEFORE our Founders' Declaration of Independence.
In summary: starkly contrasting to Confederates in 1861, our Founders in 1776 did not declare their independence until long AFTER the Brits had declared them to be in rebellion, revoked their charter of self government and began making war on Americans.
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