Posted on 05/16/2002 11:37:00 AM PDT by Aurelius
It would have threatened the good people of Charleston and potentially their economic livlihood if those troops were used in their function to stop commerce.
Oh, and before you get too far pulling the silly argument that Lincoln's troops "weren't a threat" to the south itself, I ask you then - If Sumter alone was not a threat, what about Lincoln's planned use of the same tactic all over the south? At the same time he sent the Sumter expedition, Lincoln sent a similar force to Pensacola to reprovision and increase its garrison. Other assaults were planned for forts all over the south.
If he had managed to cram 20,000 troops onto the island would Charleston have been in danger? Would they have been able to launch an invasion of South Carolina? No.
More diversion tactics and a similarly fraudulent argument. You are avoiding the central question and intentionally so: What business at all did Lincoln have garrisoning a fort blocking the harbor of a major seaport several hundred miles away from any territory remotely under his control in the first place? The inescapable answer is nothing, save to impede traffic into and out of that harbor.
Davis could have waited Lincoln out
And let Lincoln launch a military offensive to increase the garrison by force after he informed the south specifically only a week prior that he would not do so?
Even if Lincoln had closed down all traffic in and out of the harbor there was a port almost as large and as active a hundred miles down the coast at Savannah.
So what. You are intentionally avoiding the issue itself - Lincoln simply had no legitimate business trying to close down Charleston or making military preparations that would permit him to do so.
I'm willing to bet that the north would have been up in arms had Jefferson Davis sent forces to try and close down Boston. Suppose you complained about them trying to do so, and I responded by telling you "tough luck, you have a port a couple hundred miles down the coast at New York, so make due with that." Do you honestly assert that you would sit by and accept that as an answer? Heck no.
It would be an unreasonable answer for me to give you, and an absurd proposition for me to expect you to accept. Yet, in an amazing display of what can be identified only as either how far out of touch with reality you are willing to go to defend your side's indefensible actions or pure idiocy, you expect that same answer, which you would undoubtebly reject as absurd if given to yourself, to be taken as is by the south. Your irrationality, sir, is laughable.
So Davis could have taken the stance of trying to find a peaceful solution in the face of any action Lincoln could have taken - had he wanted one.
It's not exactly easy to find a "peaceful solution" no matter how hard somebody wants one when Lincoln has already launched a fleet of warships tasked specifically to force their way into Sumter by all military means accessable to them. And that was exactly the situation the south faced on April 11th, 1861. Lincoln's war fleet was set to arrive in a day or two with explicit orders to get into the fort by making war upon any and all resistance. The only option to stop them from doing so was to preempt Lincoln by taking the fort before he got there. And that is exactly what happened.
It created itself by democratic means legitimately vested in its previously existing government to form itself as its own nation, functioned as its own nation, governed itself as its own nation, set up its government to be its own nation, and existed outside of the national control of any other nation except for its own. Hence, its independence.
They were a section of the United States in rebellion
They had already cast off the United States itself with relative ease. The Lincoln government responded by invading them after they had already come into existence.
and as such the Army had every right to be in Sumter since it was their facility and the property of the U.S. Army.
The army had no more right to Sumter than Jefferson Davis had to take up a garrison blocking the entrance into Boston.
Had Lincoln evacuated Sumter or had he said that he would not attempt to perform governmental function like collecting the tariff then right then and there he would have given the Davis administration a recognition that they did not deserve.
How so? Forts all across the south were abandoned by the yankees without so much as a scratch inflicted on either side. One of them, Fort Moultrie, sat just a few miles away. What made Sumter so special that the entire issue of recognizing or not recognizing the south hinged upon it when in fact other forts elsewhere in the south were abandoned and turned over without so much as a second thought.
So we can go around and around on this but in the end is was the fact that Davis first introduced armed action into the picture
Actually, Lincoln was the first to launch an armed military offensive. Davis simply caught wind of it and preempted it by a mere day. The south definately fired the first shot, but did so only because the alternative would have inevitably caused more casualties (as it was, there were ZERO) and made taking the fort more difficult. That shot was forced by the armed military assault force Lincoln had launched several days earlier and that was due to arrive at the fort any day.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.