When Major Anderson, who apparently was not privy to Lincoln's secret plans, failed to evacuate, the fort was fired upon and eventually fell into the hands of the Confederacy on 13 April 1861 after thirty-three hours of bombardment. According to U.S. Army Captain Montgomery C. Meigs, "This is the beginning of the war which every statesman and soldier has foreseen since the passage of the South Carolina ordinance of secession."
Meigs' testimony, preserved in print by the U.S. Government itself, very candidly locates the responsibility of the bloodshed soon to come, not with the Confederates, but "in the office of the President." The violation of the armistice was, as Meigs would state in March of 1865, "an Executive act, unknown at the time to any but those engaged therein, including General Scott, the Secretary of State, and the President."
After realizing that he had been used by the Lincoln Administration to lull the Confederate Commissioners into a false sense of security, Judge Campbell likewise wrote the following words to Seward on the thirteenth of April:
"I think no candid man will read over what I have written, and consider for a moment what is going on at Sumter, but will agree that the equivocating conduct of the Administration, as measured and interpreted in connection with these promises, is the proximate cause of the great calamity." "I have a profound conviction that the telegrams of the 8th of April of General Beauregard, and of the 10th of April of General Walker, the Secretary of War, can be referred to nothing else than their belief that there has been systematic duplicity practiced on them through me. It is under an impressive sense of the weight of this responsibility that I submit to you these things for your explanation."
Evidence of illegal moves, my original contention, from the words of people of the time.
Evidence of illegal moves, my original contention, from the words of people of the time.
You seem to have difficulty understanding that not all "duplicity" or "equivocation" is necessarily illegal. (Not that I'm agreeing any such actions actually took place.)
Illegal is a word that means in violation of a specific law. Please point out the specific Federal Law that Major Anderson violated by moving his troops to Sumter.
Also, Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated during the period under discussion. I think you mixed up references to actions of Buchanan and Lincoln in the post.