Jefferson Davis was a politician and he aspired to create a new nation. He had personal political aspirations and ambitions for his country. He was capable of thinking tactically and strategically, both in his own interest in the interest of his new country and regime. Davis wasn't a babe in the woods. He wasn't purely reactive and he wasn't duped by Lincoln. Davis had had more political experience and political experience at a higher level than Lincoln. He'd been a congressman, a senator, secretary of war, and even a president's son-in-law. He'd been to university, graduated West Point and led troops in battle. Treating him as though he were a rag doll or putty in Lincoln's hands, and not a qualified political profession with his own goals and aspirations is patronizing and insulting.
Lincoln wasn't trying to force anyone to accept his terms. He was trying to keep the fort in federal hands and operational. It was the secessionists who were making demands and issuing ultimatums. Secessionist leaders had already been capturing federal forts, bases, and arsenals and seizing federal property. In some states, this had been going on before ordinances of secession had been voted. So even if you believe that unilateral secession at will was constitutional, such actions still were seditious or treasonable.
Philadelphia Press, January 15, 1861
It would be proper, we suppose, to prohibit coast-wise trade to and from the ports of South Carolina, whilst she is in her present attitude of armed defiance of the United States. In the enforcement of the revenue laws, the forts become of primary importance. Their guns cover just so much ground as is necessary to enable the United States to enforce their laws.
Abner Doubleday, brevet Major-General, U.S.A., "From Moultrie to Sumter".
We believed that in the event of an outbreak from Charleston few of us would survive; but it did not greatly concern us, since that risk was merely a part of our business, and we intended to make the best fight we could. The officers, upon talking the matter over, thought they might control any demonstration at Charleston by throwing shells into the city from Castle Pinckney.
You may think those fortresses posed no threat to the confederacy or to Charleston, but I think people looked at it differently when they lived under the guns of those forts.
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Lincoln wasn't trying to force anyone to accept his terms. He was trying to keep the fort in federal hands and operational.
The fort had never been operational. It had never even been manned until Anderson commandeered a ship to sail him over to it in the middle of the night.