What about armed invasion and takeover of miltary posts and other government installations? Which started clear back in 1860, all over the South. Were those also acts of war? The Union chose not to consider them such, but maybe they just weren't as "sensitive" as southerners.
I'd like a reference on the Union blockade of VA before secession. It's contrary to some things I've read elsewhere.
Thanks for your correction of the date on "invasion" of VA.
It depends entirely upon the claims of ownership, seizing entity, and the nature of the acquisition. The other forts in Charleston Harbor were not seized by force. Anderson, in violation of standing orders from the War Department, moved the entire Charleston garrison into the mothballed Fort Sumter and turned his guns on the city - an act that was considered hostile in itself. Upon doing so he also abandoned Forts Moultrie, Johnson, and Pinckney at which point the SC troops simply moved in and occupied the vacant positions. Considering that all three of these forts dated to revolutionary days and had been built by and with funds from either the colony or state of South Carolina itself and only conditionally ceded for defensive uses to the US army in the first place, it is difficult to dispute the legitimacy of the SC troops' action. And considering that the forts were abandoned by Anderson, it would be difficult to argue that simply occupying them without resistance of any form is an "armed invasion and takeover of a military post."
I'd like a reference on the Union blockade of VA before secession. It's contrary to some things I've read elsewhere.
Happily.
April 27, 1861
By the President of the United States of America,
A Proclamation.
Whereas, for the reasons assigned in my Proclamation of the 19th. instant, a blockade of the ports of the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, was ordered to be established:
And whereas, since that date, public property of the United States has been seized, the collection of the revenue obstructed, and duly commissioned officers of the United States while engaged in executing the orders of their superiors have been arrested and held in custody as prisoners or have been impeded in the discharge of their official duties without due legal process, by persons claiming to act under authorities of the States of Virginia and North Carolina, an efficient blockade of the ports of those States will also be established. In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the City of Washington, this twenty-seventh day of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty one, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-fifth. ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Virginia did not secede until almost a month later. Neither did North Carolina.