[Non-Sequitur]

Not so, the legislation was merely a ploy by the state to quash Mag. Laval's claim. I think this is where you may have obtained the said legislation.

Why would they need a 'ploy' to quash Laval's claims if not to transfer ownership to the federal government for the fort?

That this state do cede to the United States, all the right, title and claim of South Carolina to the site of Fort Sumter and the requisite quantity of adjacent territory, Provided, That all processes, civil and criminal issued under the authority of this State, or any officer thereof, shall and may be served and executed upon the same,...

And? That meant that someone could not hide in the fort and avoid local civil or criminal proceedings. But before that the legislation said that the state did 'cede to the United States, all the right, title and claim of South Carolina to the site of Fort Sumter and the requisite quantity of adjacent territory...' What do you take that to mean?

[smug]

' What do you take that to mean?Basically what you stated. But as lawyers tend to do, legal grounds for the Independent State of S.C. and afterwards the C.S. to contest the ownership of those forts. Nothing in law is clear cut. Read these exceptions

The sites of forts, arsenals, navy-yards, and other public property of the Federal Government were ceded by the States, within whose limits they were, subject to the condition, either expressed or implied, that they should be used solely and exclusively for the purposes for which they were granted. The ultimate ownership of the soil, or eminent domain, remains with the people of the State in which it lies, by virtue of their sovereignty. Thus, the State of Massachusetts has declared that— "The sovereignty and jurisdiction of the Commonwealth extend to all places within the boundaries thereof, subject only to such rights of concurrent jurisdiction as have been or may be granted over any places ceded by the Commonwealth to the United States."111 In the acts of cession of the respective States, the terms and conditions on which the grant is made are expressed in various forms and with differing degrees of precision.

The act of New York, granting the use of a site for the Brooklyn Navy-Yard, may serve as a specimen. It contains this express condition: "The United States are to retain such use and jurisdiction, so long as said tract shall be applied to the defense and safety of the city and port of New York, and no longer.... But the jurisdiction hereby ceded, and the exemption from taxation herein granted, shall continue in respect to said property, and to each portion thereof, so long as the same shall remain the property of the United States, and be used for the purposes aforesaid, and no longer." The cession of the site of the Watervliet Arsenal is made in the same or equivalent terms, except that, instead of "defense and safety of the city and port of New York," etc., the language is, "defense and safety of the said State, and no longer." And as Still sitting U.S. Senator form Mississippi J. Davis stated, When discussing the question of withdrawing the troops from the port of Charleston, he (Pres. Buchanan) yielded a ready assent to the proposition that the cession of a site for a fort, for purposes of public defense, lapses, whenever that fort should be employed by the grantee against the State by which the cession was made, on the familiar principle that any grant for a specific purpose expires when it ceases to be used for that purpose. The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government[pg 217]

I am not trying to justify the Confederate side and certainly not the Federal side, but just to point that there was a bone of contention, that as you have stated , I believe, that these points could and should have been hashed out, in court or through negotiations. Which I might add to Buchanan's discredit he failed to do, as Commissioners were sent to Washington for that very purpose as is stated in communications that they sent to Buchanan.