So a predetermined ex post facto ruling of the supreme court makes it all illegal? You know as well as anybody that the court had no other option than to rule against secession in 1869 in light of the circumstances that immediately preceded it. Besides, revolutions, peaceful or otherwise, do not require the consent of the previous government in order to occur. Try again.
Their independence wasn't recognized by the United States government or any other government.
Yet their independence was a reality inherent to their status as self created and self governing in an actualized independence from their previous government. Again, revolutions do not require the consent or recognition of their prior government. That would be absurd.
Sumter was a U.S. Army post, built by the government in a city of the United States.
And that city along with its surrounding waters and territory was no longer a city of the United States. Hence the fort, which was hundreds of miles from anything even remotely belonging to Lincoln, was no longer theirs.
The Army had every right to be there.
They had no more right to be there than Jefferson Davis had to hold a fort in Boston. Of course, if the latter were the case by your own admission, it wouldn't have been of any consequence since all the people of Boston would have had to do was go a couple hundred miles up the coast to New York for an open port.
Davis had no such power because he was not in command of the army of the United States or any other country.
Funny. Cause if what you say is true, he put up quite a fight over the next four years for having no army!
U.S. Military installations had been appropriated by the confederacy.
You are again avoiding the question. Confederacy occupation of previously northern forts elsewhere occured without incident. Yet you said Sumter had to be kept at all costs or else it would ammount to recognizing the confederacy as legitimate. Again my question: What made Sumter so special that the entire issue of recognizing the confederacy's legitimacy revolved around it alone, and none of those other forts?
How so?
The south had 4 options. Option 1 was without question the lowest in casualties: 1. Act as it did preempting Lincoln's attack. No casualties suffered.
2. Wait for Lincoln's attack, repulse it, then take the fort. Liklihood of casualties.
3. Repulse Lincoln's attack and leave the fort as is, prompting future attempts by Lincoln to reach the fort. Liklihood of casualties and uncertainty of future attacks.
4. Let Lincoln enter and increase the fort's garrison making it harder to take in the future. Liklihood of more casualties than a fort with a lower garrison.
Up to that point the Union had taken not a single hostile action against the rebellion
Sending a fleet of warships under false pretenses to commence forceful entry into the fort around April 5th ammounted to initiating a hostile action. The confederates preempted that military maneuver on the 12th. Excepting isolated skirmishes by both sides in prior months, the April 5th sending of warships by Lincoln was the first hostile act of the war.
There is no reason to believe that that was going to change just because Lincoln put food and reinforcements into Sumter.
Incorrect. Lincoln's orders, which you have no doubt seen considering that I have posted them repeatedly, directly authorized forceful entry by military warships to reach Sumter. Southern intelligence caught wind of his intentions despite them being misrepresented as strictly peaceful by Lincoln. Therefore there was every reason in the world to believe that hostility would occur.
But Davis chose to take the first step and initiate hostilities.
Incorrect. Lincoln initiated hostilities a week earlier with his orders to the fleet. Davis merely preempted those orders from being carried out by acting the day before Lincoln's warships arive.
Well...at least you admit that it was a rebellion and have dropped the farce of the confederate actions being legal.