But they were warned:
Who opened hostilities? Lincoln did, by blockading sea ports. This itself an act of war.
Who shot a gun first? Yes, the secessionists shot first at Ft. Sumter. Whoop de freakin' do -- the total death toll was one poor horse.
Who drew the first human blood? It was a Massachusetss regiment marching through Baltimore on April 19, 1861, firing on civilians and killing twelve. (Sheesh, what is it about that April 19th date?!)
You are correct -- the Confederates were warned. It was a member of Jefferson Davis' own cabinet, Robert Toombs, who sounded the alarm. He was ardently opposed to firing on Ft. Sumter. He correctly saw it as falling for Lincoln's bait to draw them into war:
The firing on that fort will inaugurate a civil war greater than any the world has ever seen, Mr. President. It is suicide, it is murder, and will lose us every friend at the North. You will wantonly strike a hornet's nest which extends from mountains to ocean; and legions, now quiet, will swarm out and sting us to death. It is unnecessary, it puts us in the wrong. It is fatal.
For all those around the world who would secede from a tyrannical government, please heed the words of Robert Toombs. Do not fall into the trap of war. Secede firmly, quietly, and peacefully.
The American secession from Britain in 1776 was bloody, yes, and it was one of those rare successes. At least in that secession the British fired first.
Too bad Robert Toombs had not been president of the Confederacy in 1861.
The blockade was instigated -after- the firing on Fort Sumter. Or could you please provide a source for this? If you think about it, it's a little nutty on it's face. Would Lincoln impose a blackade and THEN re-supply Sumter?
"As he hears his own lips parroting the sad cliches of 1850 does the Southerner sometimes wonder if the words are his own? Does he ever, for a moment, feel the desperation of being caught in some great time machine, like a tread mill, and doomed to eternal effort without progress? Or feel, like Sisyphus, the doom of pushing a great stone up a hill only to have the weight, like guilt, roll back over him, over and over again? When he lifts his arms to silence protest, does he ever feel, even fleetingly, that he is lifting it against some voice deep in himself?"
--Robert Penn Warren, "The legacy of the Civil War", p.56-57
Walt
They fired on Old Glory.
They sowed the wind and they reaped the whirlwind.
Walt
Better to heed the words of Thomas Jefferson:
"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
Perhaps you can lay out a the long train of abuses before 1860 that would parallel the one that Jefferson refers to.
Walt