ROTFLMAO! Excellent point (such inaccuracy would never happen today though).
"But the important factor is that the confederates DID open fire first. The question is why? What was threatened?"
Considering that the South had seceded and reclaimed their sovereignity, the Fort we are discussing was hundreds of miles into the territory now claimed by the South. And of course they fired first. Why? Consider Pearl Harbor in 1941. Would you wait until a foreign government sent planes smashing into your ships and destroyed the bulk of your fleet before firing? Was there a legitimate reason for hundreds of Japanese planes to be flying over US territory? If we had sufficient warning of the attack, would it have been wrong for the US to defend it's property from attack before the targets were reached? If a Iraqi plane is headed toward you, or towards American soil, with an unknown cargo, do we have to wait until it drops the bomb before it's ok to shoot it down? Would it have been wrong for the USS Cole to destroy the attacking boat before it hit?
"Even with the reinforcements and supplies could Sumter have threatened the survival of the confederacy? Could the 500 or so men in the fort launched an invasion of South Carolina? Would closing the third largest port in the south caused irreparable economic harm? Had the troops in Sumter issued any threat at all? The answer to all those is no. "
With our knowledge after the fact, I might tend to agree with you. The question is did the South know at the time, and would you allow a FORT to be restocked and retained by a foreign force?
I'm not praising the actions of either side, I think that both sides made mistakes. FWIW, that's why I find it incredible that Lincoln was so willing to force the South to remain, and that so many lives would be lost. Not just Southern, but Northern as well. Would the Union have self-destructed if the South had been allowed to leave? No. Would the South have ever returned to the Union? Possibly. Would the South have been a enemy of the North? I doubt it.
"So why the rush to open fire if not because you wanted a war all along?"
Why the rush to stock the fort, if not to start the war?
That is the sort of half-assed, half-baked argument that neo-confederates must resort to. The historical record in no way supports it. The people are the sovereigns of the United States, and the "south" had no right to act unilaterally.
That was made clear very early in the national life. Justice James Wilson wrote in Chisholm v. Georgia, 1793:
"Who were these people? They were the citizens of thirteen states, each of which had a separate constitution and government, and all of which were connected by articles of confederation. To the purposes of public strength and felicity the confederacy was totally inadequate. A requistion on the several states terminated its legislative authority; executive or judicial authority, it had none.
In order, therefore, to form a more perfect union, to establish justice, to insure domestic tranquility, to provide for common defense and to secure the blessings of liberty, those people, among whom were the people of Georgia, ordained and established the present constitution. By that constitution, legislative power is vested, executive power is vested, judicial power is vested...We may then infer, that the people of the United States intended to bind the several states, by the legislative power of the national government...
Whoever considers, in a combined and comprehensive view, the general texture of the constitution, wil be satisfied that the people of the United States intended to form themselves into a nation for national purposes. They instituted, for such purposes, a national government complete in all its parts, with powers legislative, executive and judiiciary, ad in all those powers extending over the whole nation."
Chief Justice John Marshall, 1819, writing the majority opinion in McCullough v. Virginia
"The mischievous consequences of the construction contended for on the part of Virginia, are also entitled to great consideration. It would prostrate, it has been said, the government and its laws at the feet of every state in the Union. And would this not be the effect? What power of the government could be executed by its own means, in any states disposed to resist its execution by a course of legislation?...each member will possess a veto on the will of the whole...there is certainly nothing in the circumstances under which our constitution was formed; nothing in the history of the times, which justify the opinion that the confidence reposed in the states was so implicit as to leave in them and their tribunals the power of resisting or defeating, in the form of law, the legislative measures of the Union..."
It just sort of seems, well, cheesy, to wait decades and then say you don't agree. And it is cheesy and dishonorable to post, in malevolence something that one knows the record simply will not support.
Now, I know you have seen these court cases before. I do not post them for your benefit. But they can only serve to embarrass you, and this nonsensical neo-confederate rant.
Walt
Because Lincoln's clearly stated policy was to maintain federal property without causing friction. The fort had -been- stocked before; restocking it was not an act of war. Firing on Old Glory was and is.
Walt
I wouldn't call it a rush rather than carrying out something he had pledged to do for some time. During several public addresses in Indiana and New Jersey and Pennsylvania Lincoln had made it clear that he saw it as his duty to retain government property still in government hands and, if possible, restore those facilities that had already been appropriated to government control. Sending supplies to Sumter was in line with those positions. What is surprising is that the south knew this and apparently didn't believe that actually Lincoln planned on doing it.
Would the Union have self-destructed if the South had been allowed to leave? No. Would the South have ever returned to the Union? Possibly. Would the South have been a enemy of the North? I doubt it.
Now that is just flat out crazy. What possible motivation would the south ever have had to rejoin the North? Either the south would have to change their positions or the North would have to change theirs, and I can't imagine what would cause that to happen. No, secession would have been forever. The two nations would have quickly become business rivals and competitors. And if the original separation had come as a result of the south winning the war then you would have had an armed border, huge armies, and military confrontations for decades afterwards.