[DiogenesLamp]

Rather than drag up ridiculous comparisons, you can just say you don't want to answer the question.

Obviously Captain Porter thought he was engaging in some act that might get him sunk. It's hard to characterize it as anything but a deliberate act of belligerence. It was apparently Lincoln's backup plan to make sure a war started.

It was a war the North badly needed to stop economic competition from the South. It was Rome and Carthage all over again.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "Rather than drag up ridiculous comparisons, you can just say you don't want to answer the question."

Rather than continue telling cockamamie lies, you could just confess you have no clue about the real truth, and more important, don't care.

DiogenesLamp: "Obviously Captain Porter thought he was engaging in some act that might get him sunk.
It's hard to characterize it as anything but a deliberate act of belligerence.
It was apparently Lincoln's backup plan to make sure a war started."

Whenever law enforcement confronts armed lawbreakers, the general rule is not to use deadly force unless threated.
Union forces were threatened repeatedly in those days.