Technically, no it was not. It was a two masted MERCHANT side wheeler. Figuratively, that's not much more than a tug boat.
And why should the fact that SC state trops fired on her -not- constitute the start of the war?
If bouncing a few pellets off the side of your little (figurative) tugboat constitutes war, then the fact that the star of the west was secretly delivering 200 armed infantry and ammunition to Sumter could similarly be characterized as an act of war - moving a hostile organized military force onto land that does not belong to them for the purpose of occupying that land and defending it as their position with military force.
If someone fired on you, would that be an act of war?
No. It would be an isolated act of violence. And if that person fired on me for attempting to enter his store to rob him with a weapon concealed under my jacket, he would probably have good cause to have fired.
We can split these hairs all you like Technically we could, but for some reason I do not think you are even honest enough to do that.
but you are simply wrong.
Quod gratis asseritur gratis negatur.
Note too, that in this case, the slave holders fired the first shot.
Did they? Do you know for a fact that the person who fired that shot owned a slave? If not, on what grounds do you make your assertion? Just curious.
But the war, --in a sense--
And the question is what sense. I maintain that a war is not a war until one organized force engages in a significant attack upon another. And no, shooting a pop gun at a tug boat does not constitute a battle.
began when South Carolina hauled down Old Glory. And they got what was coming to them.
Do I take it then that you admit the north acted in aggression against South Carolina for taking an action (hauling down the flag) that the north, in that particular case, disagreed with? Or do you mean something else when you say "they got what was coming to them"
The point remains that almost nothing you've said in this particular segue will hold water
Quod gratis asseritur gratis negatur. Accordingly, your above statement has been rejected.
, but you continue to dig yourself in deeper and deeper.
I would tend to think that you would be well served to purchase a mirror as it is you, not me, who stands deeply in something unpleasant of your own creation at this point in the debate. Let's consider what has happened so far...
1. I quoted lincoln's endorsement of the said amendment.
2. You responded by essentially ignoring the quote and then telling me that I am somehow wrong because what my quote demonstrated conflicted with what you asserted lincoln to be.
3. I again responded in defense of my quote, and you responded to that with # 2 again, and again, and again. In the meantime brief discussions have emerged about subtopics, in which case you have acted in a similar manner by attacking my facts on the grounds that they are inconsistent with what you say by your own authority and therefore must be wrong.
4. Eventually you realized you were getting nowhere so you built a straw man, attributed it to me, and attacked it.
5. I responded by calling you on your straw man
6. You responded to that by denying your straw man and altering the context and order in which that straw man was stated by exchanging it with another quote.
7. I corrected you again and demonstrated how the record clearly showed the order of our conversation and how, in that order, you engaged in a straw man.
8. You responded by attempting to casually shove off your straw man in hopes that it would go away and nobody else would notice.
9. That brings us to just before this post, where now you are arbitrarily telling me that I am wrong yet you give no proof why other than simply saying it.
10. Since that which is asserted without proof may be rejected without proof, I have again rejected your statement as it has not been proven, nor have you even attempted to prove it.
And that leaves us where we stand.
Technically, no it was not. It was a two masted MERCHANT side wheeler. Figuratively, that's not much more than a tug boat.
Then you made a misstatement of fact. I just want the record to show that.
Walt
If bouncing a few pellets off the side of your little (figurative) tugboat constitutes war, then the fact that the star of the west was secretly delivering 200 armed infantry and ammunition to Sumter could similarly be characterized as an act of war - moving a hostile organized military force onto land that does not belong to them for the purpose of occupying that land and defending it as their position with military force.
Then your answer is yes. Good deal.
No, the war generally is thought to have begun with the firing on Fort Sumter.
How did we get off on this? I forget.
Too, the land did clearly belong to the federal government because SC ceded it to the feds in an 1836 act of the legislature. You have just as much right to sieze your neighbors house as SC did to sieze the fort.
Walt
Did they? Do you know for a fact that the person who fired that shot owned a slave?
Edmund Ruffin is often considered to have fired the first shot in the Civil War. He was definitely a slave holder. He was also, as I recall, an innovator in husbandry. But I digress. Consider:
. "But, I thought it worth mentioning for anyone not aware, there is some controversy over attributing the first shot of the CW to Edmund Ruffin.
Ruffin may have fired ONE of the first shots, but it seems unlikely that he fired THE first shot.
Robert Hendrickson, in "Sumter, The First Day of the Civil War," goes so far as to state, "What is absolutely certain is that old Edmund Ruffin, full of fleas from sleeping in his uniform on the sand, did not fire the first shot of the Civil War as so many historians have claimed." A number of Confederate accounts place the "honor" upon Captain Geroge S. James, including an account in the Southern Historical Society papers. A book by Colonel Alfred Roman's, "The Military Operations of General Beauregard," states, "From Fort Johnson's mortar battery at 4:30 a.m. issued the first shot of the war. It was fired not by Mr. Ruffin from Virginia, as has been erroneously supposed, but by Captain George S. James of South Carolina."
Abner Doubleday, on the receiving end of those shots, wrote in his "Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultre in 1860 - 1861," that "The mortar battery at Cummings Point opened fire on Fort Sumter in its turn, after the signal shell from Fort Johnson, having been preceded by mortar batteries on Sullivan's Island and and the mortar battery of the Marion Artillery..." Edmund Ruffin was with the Palmetto Guard at Cummings Point, and their firing was "preceded" by firing from other batteries, so, Doubleday's account would seem to indicate that it would not have been possible for Ruffin to have fired THE first shot. Maury Klein, in his "Days of Defiance," states "James claimed the honor for himself," (he offered the first shot to Roger Pryor who declined), " at 4:30 a.m. he sent a 10 inch mortar shell soaring over the harbor. It burst above the fort and announced to a sleeping nation that war had come." Boatner's "The Civil War Dictionary," entry for "Ruffin" states that "Sometimes credited with firing the first shot, although it would probably be more accurate to say that after Captain James had fired the signal gun, Ruffin fired the first shot from the Stevens Battery. Even that is questionable." "Who is Who in the Confederacy," by Stewart Sifakis allows Ruffin, "...to fire one of the first shots at Fort Sumter," but not specifically the first. "Who was Who in the Civil War," edited by Crescent Books, notes under "Ruffin," that "some sources erroneously state he fired the first shot."
It is worth noting that the 67 year old Ruffin's legendary ability with artillery continued after Sumter. At first Bull Run it was alleged that he fired the shot that blocked Cub Run bridge, commencing the Union rout. It may be more accurate, in future incarnations of the CWQ to amend the question to, "one of the first shots of the Civil War."
--From the ACW moderated newsgroup
I don't know if this James person was a slave holder or not.
But it is beyond hair splitting to say that the slave holders didn't open the war.
Walt