“The affair at Fort Sumter, it seems to us, has been planned as a means by which the war feeling at the North should be intensified, and the administration thus receive popular support for its policy.... If the armament which lay outside the harbor, while the fort was being battered to pieces [the US ship The Harriet Lane, and seven other reinforcement ships], had been designed for the relief of Major Anderson, it certainly would have made a show of fulfilling its mission. But it seems plain to us that no such design was had. The administration, virtually, to use a homely illustration, stood at Sumter like a boy with a chip on his shoulder, daring his antagonist to knock it off. The Carolinians have knocked off the chip. War is inaugurated, and the design of the administration accomplished.” ~ The Buffalo Daily Courier, April 16, 1861.
“We have no doubt, and all the circumstances prove, that it was a cunningly devised scheme, contrived with all due attention to scenic display and intended to arouse, and, if possible, exasperate the northern people against the South.... We venture to say a more gigantic conspiracy against the principles of human liberty and freedom has never been concocted. Who but a fiend could have thought of sacrificing the gallant Major Anderson and his little band in order to carry out a political game? Yet there he was compelled to stand for thirty-six hours amid a torrent of fire and shell, while the fleet sent to assist him, coolly looked at his flag of distress and moved not to his assistance! Why did they not? Perhaps the archives in Washington will yet tell the tale of this strange proceeding.... Pause then, and consider before you endorse these mad men who are now, under pretense of preserving the Union, doing the very thing that must forever divide it.” ~ The New York Evening Day-Book, April 17, 1861..
“You and I both anticipated that the cause of the country would be advanced by making the attempt to provision Fort Sumter, even if it should fail ; and it is no small consolation now to feel that our anticipation is justified by the result. “ Abraham Lincoln, in a letter to Gustavus Fox, May 1, 1861.
You know, I first got interested in the Civil War when my best friend (who happens to be black) was attending College and majoring in History told me that he had just learned that Lincoln had cleverly engineered the start of the war.
He was chortling about it. He was extremely pleased. He said "Lincoln laid a trap and those stupid Confederates fell right into it."
I asked him for details of how he knew this, and he told me that Lincoln had been advised by his military staff of a non confrontational way to resupply the fort, but Lincoln was having none of it.
He said that Lincoln sent a letter to the Confederates informing them that he was going to resupply the fort whether they liked it or not. That he believed this would trigger an attack is apparent in the fact that he had sent a letter to Major Anderson informing him that he would be attacked, and that he should hold the fort for awhile and then surrender.
I later found out that this part was not completely accurate. The letter was from the Secretary of War, (who presumably was doing Lincoln's bidding) Not Lincoln, but the essential facts were accurate.
I thought at the time that this was compelling evidence that Lincoln did indeed trigger a horribly bloody war that cost many lives and destroyed many people's futures.
I thought it was not appropriate to be laughing about Lincoln deliberately starting this war, but I didn't say anything at the time because he had a very "Social Justice Warrior" mindset and simply supported the eventual result of the war.
In any case, it is interesting that at least a couple of Northern Newspapers recognized what was going on. I'm pretty sure Lincoln had them shut down when he started his crackdown on dissident press.
The paper seems legit, though nothing available on this quote.
And I think we are still talking about Democrats criticizing Republicans.
What else is new?
More important, the same criticism can be made of President Roosevelt at Pearl Harbor, but it's irrelevant.
In both cases, war was started by the military power which attacked United States forces.