The southern states made war against it’s northern brother states. Again, if you seek tyranny you need go no further. Had the slavocracy truly wanted a peaceful secession and independence there were ways to achieve it. They clearly did not.
BTW: The blockade of Charleston did not occur until after the rebels attacked the federal fort Sumter.
Act like red-headed step-children, get treated like red-headed step-children.
All the South did want was a peaceful secession from a North that reneged on the original agreement and condition to join the Union.
Slavery according to most historians was being phased out. The Yanks till this day believe they are morally and intellectually superior; some things never change.
Look -- we are not going to change each others' mind nor perspective. Appreciate the exchange.
That was not the case in Florida.
On March 12, 1861, eight days after his inaugural speech that was correctly perceived to mean war, Lincoln ordered that the troops on the Brooklyn, previously sent to station in Florida, be offloaded into Fort Pickens.
The order was sent by E. D. Townsend by the command of Winfield Scott. Reinforcing the fort, of course, would be in violation of the armistice and trigger an assault by the troops surrounding the fort, then maybe 5,000 in number.
It would mean war.
Lincolns Navy Secretary Gideon Wells knew of the armistice, certainly by communications from Pensacola dated March 18 that referred to the agreement made between Mallory and the US government and perhaps earlier from his predecessor when he took office.
Fortunately, however, the March 12 order didn't reach the Brooklyn until March 31.
The Navy commander of the vessels at Pensacola realized Scotts orders were in direct violation of his orders from the Navy Department (which were to obey the armistice), and he declined to offload the troops.
At this point Lincoln through Welles reaffirmed the order to reinforce Pickens and orders more troops to be sent for that purpose. Like Andersons realization that Lincolns expedition to Sumter meant war, Montgomery Meigs, who headed the April effort to reinforce Fort Pickens, realized that Lincolns action at Pickens meant war.
Meigs put it this way: “This is the beginning of the war which every statesman and soldier has foreseen since the passage of the South Carolina ordinance of secession.” [Official Records, Series 1, Volume 1, page 368] and also from a post by Rustbucket on another thread.