Yankeefa is just not open to anything that contradicts their PC Revisionist dogma - no matter how irrefutable the source.
FLT-bird: "Yankeefa is just not open to anything that contradicts their PC Revisionist dogma - no matter how irrefutable the source."
Every human being in the world is appropriately concerned about their own "revenue question", but very few start a war to solve it.
In 1861 none of the newspaper editorials posted here said, in effect: "let's send a 'war fleet' to Charleston with orders to attack Confederates and start war to solve our revenue question".
One reason should be obvious -- Charleston produced virtually no Federal tariff revenues.
So, if the "revenue problem" was Lincoln's driving concern, then his "war fleet" would go where the money was, i.e., New Orleans.
The same applies even more to Fort Pickens, Pensacola, FL.
Indeed, rustbucket's post #852 above clearly says: "New York Herald of March 14, 1861: "Collecting the Revenue. -- The evacuation of Fort Sumter is an act of necessity on the part of the government at Washington."
So there's no direct connection anywhere between a president's natural concerns over revenues and Lincoln's actions at Fort Sumter.
The direct connections we do have show Lincoln hoped to trade Fort Sumter for something of value from Virginia, and when that didn't happen, ordered ships to resupply Fort Sumter.
We also have quotes showing Jefferson Davis intended to attack both Sumter & Pickens regardless of what Lincoln did or didn't do.
Was that over some "revenue question"?
No, Davis wanted first, "to relieve our territory and jurisdiction of the presence of a foreign garrison" and second, "other considerations", especially the necessity for war to flip Virginia & other Upper South states from Union to Confederacy.