[x]

What troops? He was sending supplies. And really, the idea that Fort Sumter was some kind of unendurable threat to the whole state of South Carolina just won't fly.

But this argument is pointless. If you think that just having a federal garrison in a federal fort was an unendurable assault on South Carolina that justified starting a war then you're going to start a war -- or justify starting the war. If you believe you're justified in firing first and fire first, you've already started the war -- and lost the argument.

PS, What happened to all those New England cotton men who you say were so passionate for war? Haven't heard much about them lately.

[DiogenesLamp]

What troops? He was sending supplies. And really, the idea that Fort Sumter was some kind of unendurable threat to the whole state of South Carolina just won't fly.

The troops on those ships that were sent to reinforce Ft. Sumter. I can look up their names and how many troops they were carrying, but I don't remember that information right off the top of my head. I believe PeaRidge probably knows exactly where to find it, but I would have to look for it.

And as for Ft. Sumter, the presence of it's guns, and the threat to use them, would preclude the establishment of a low Tariff port in Charleston. The continued occupation of it by Union forces would have put off the trade that they were expecting which would allow it to becoming a heavily trafficked low tariff port.

[BroJoeK]

x: "...the idea that Fort Sumter was some kind of unendurable threat to the whole state of South Carolina just won't fly."

Thanks! Three excellent analogies make this case:

1. British forts on US territory for years after the Revolutionary war.
   Brits maintained at least half a dozen forts in New York, Ohio and Michigan for up to 14 years after the Treaty of Paris in 1783.
   They were never considered a casus belli and were patiently negotiated away by John Jay's treaty of 1796.

2. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor exactly illustrates how the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter was unequivocally and act of war against the United States.

3. The US base at Guantanamo illustrates the fact that a change in government in Cuba in no way invalidates the US military's legal right to occupy its base there, just as the Deep South's declarations of secession in no way invalidated US ownership of forts, ships, arsenals & mints, etc. in those states.