The U.S. military literally built that island, utterly no question it was property of the North. I contend the Civil War was foremost about tenacious defense of 🇺🇸 land; other issues conveniently piggybacked that cause.
Our son actually learned that in school. It was also about states rights vs a big federal government. They added slavery to get more people interested and fighting.
Property of the North? I can see an argument for claiming it was the property of the US Government, but I don't know how you can make the claim that it was the property of the "North."
I contend the Civil War was foremost about tenacious defense of 🇺🇸 land; other issues conveniently piggybacked that cause.
I contend the Civil War was primarily about Washington DC getting 73% of it's funding from the Southern states, and were quite pissed about the idea of not only losing that source of revenue, but of the possibility of Northern industries being seriously damaged by Southern states being used as transshipment depots for European products which would compete directly with businesses ran by wealthy and connected North Eastern power barons.
One of the reasons I think this is because the "North" offered the South the Corwin Amendment which would have guaranteed and protected slavery indefinitely, so clearly the Northern powers were not upset at the continuation of slavery.
But that money stuff is another matter altogether. They were *VERY* upset about the possibility of losing hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue to competing Southern states.