Replies

PeaBrain: "It was only after Lincoln called up the state militias, ordered the blockade of Southern ports, and prepared to send Union troops into Virginia that war began.
The United States government formally determined this event as the beginning of the war."

No, irrelevant, since for example: everyone today "gets" the idea that radical Islamists have long been "at war" against the US & western civilization, while we do very little in response.
So a state of war does not begin when we respond, but when they increase levels of violence from "provocation" to "acts of war".

Consider likewise, in WWII both Japanese & Germans committed provocations against US forces, especially by attacking navy ships, but none of these provocations rose to the level of act of war before Pearl Harbor.

So also with US Civil War.
For months secessionists provoked war with numerous acts and threats of violence against Union officials & property.
But Confederate bombardment of Union troops in Fort Sumter was their first action rising to the level of act of war.

Lincoln's initial responses were not acts of war, since, for example, calling for 75,000 troops did not even match the Confederacy's army of 100,000.
Nor is an announced blockade, by itself, necessarily an act of war, as President Kennedy demonstrated when blockading Cuba against Soviet missile-carrying ships.

A serious act of war is just what the words imply: a major military assault on another military, such as Pearl Harbor and Confederate actions against Union troops in Fort Sumter.

Brojoek, I don't think you fully realize how the sophomoric tenor and content of your recent posts is wasting bandwidth here.

Attempting to co-mingle unrelated events and mixing in non sequiturs from your imaginary analogies is leaching the patience of fellow posters.

You have no stature here to present your definition of war.

Here is the Supreme Court case that defines the beginning as an act originating in President Lincoln's office. None of your supercilious comments resemble anything in the ruling.

Here is the case number:

Protector, 79 U.S. 12 Wall. 700 700 (1870) APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE

UNITED STATES FOR THE DISTRICT OF LOUISIANA

Syllabus

1. The beginning and termination of the late rebellion in reference to acts of limitation is to be determined by some public act of the political department.

2. The war did not begin or close at the same time in all the states.

3. Its commencement in certain states will be referred to the first proclamation of blockade embracing them and made on the 19th April, 1861, and as to other states to the second proclamation of blockade embracing them, and made on the 27th April, 1861.

Both were political acts by Lincoln.

If you continue to posit your war beginning canard, you will receive this same document every time.