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.
It depends entirely upon the claims of ownership, seizing entity, and the nature of the acquisition.
What the secessionists did had a lot in common with purse snatching.
Walt
What you are actually saying is that till May 23, VA was still in the Union, and that military attacks on Union posts were therefore treasonous, by strict constitutional definition.
Thanks for making my point better than I could. :<)
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.
In my question about armed attacks on federal posts, I was not referring strictly to Charleston or SC. I was speaking about federal posts throughout the South, all of which were taken with the threat of force, as you rightly point out a hostile act in and of itself. You seem to think that for 5,000(?) men with heavy guns to surround a garrison with heavy guns is a perfectly friendly act, whereas if the garrison of 100 points its vastly outclassed firepower back, without firing, it is a hostile act.
With the partial exceptionsof VA, SC, NC and GA; all federal installations in southern states were built or acquired entirely with funds from the entire Union, not from those of the particular state involved.
To change the question somewhat, I never hear much discussion of the validity of secession by the later acquired states as opposed to those of the original four. Let us agree, for the purpose of discussion, that these four had a pre-Union existence as independent countries, the basic argument for legal secession. We could probably make an even better case for TX. On what basis can you possibly make a claim for the legality of secession by LA, FL,MS, AL, TN and AR? These states never had any existence except as provided for in the constitution, and therefore had no legal status other than that provided for in the constitution.