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Lincoln clearly did not consider his actions as invasion, he believed the second half of the quote, merely moving troops from one part of the United States to another.

It isn't my fault if the man fibs about his actions as according to his own definition what he did was coercion and invasion.

He did not view it as coercion, you did. He did not believe it was invasion, you do.

Tell me - do the actions of the yankees during the war constitute invasion as specifically defined by Lincoln? His definition was "marching of an army into" an area "without the consent of her people, and in hostility against them." In that light the war was a clear cut case of invasion.

Whether Lincoln purports it to be something else or not does not change this and at most only demonstrates sophistry and dishonesty on Lincoln's part.

You continue to make an issue of tariffs as if they were the sole purpose behind Lincoln's actions.

Nonsense. I have long recognized them as an issue but never the sole issue as to do so would be as ignorant as persons such as McPherson who purport slavery to be the sole issue. My contention with tariffs is simply that they were a prominent and major issue occupying a central place among the controversies that led to the war.

The federal government realized fraction of one percent of its total revenue from Charleston's imports, less that 5% or 6% from the entire south.

Even if your stats were right you are missing the entire point of protectionist tariffs. Raising money is only a side benefit of tariffs. The real issue, as any person with even the slightest background in economics will tell you, is controlling competition. The north made their products competitive on the market by forcing the prices of european substitutes higher. Hence it is called "protectionism," as in protecting the home industry from being undercut by the competition from abroad. Outside of federal courts and the military, tariff collection and the mail were about all the federal government did.

Nonsense. Though it is nothing like today, the federal government at the time was becoming increasingly meddlesome in industry by way of subside and economic intervention. A few of the biggies included the railroad and steamship industries. I'll dig up specifics on both if you are interested.

So what?

No one was talking tarrifs in 1860-61.

The record shows that all southern ports combined collected less in a year in the late 1850's than Philadelphia. It simply wasn't an issue.

That is the sort of hard data that your interpretation totally lacks and also dismisses as irrelevant.

Walt

There were no fibs involved in Lincoln words or his actions. His actions were not an invasion, since one does not invade ones own country. He sent forces south to put down the rebellion that the southerners themselves had initiated and that they are responsible for. Coercion was no longer a consideration once southern hostilites began. One tries coercion to prevent another from taking an action, but once the action is taken anyway then you react to it. Lincoln didn't try to coerce anything, just made it clear that in his view the southern states were part of the United States regardless of what they said or did. When that tactic failed, he met armed violence with armed violence.

Protectionism tariffs may have been, and I don't deny that at all, the most visible signs of the central government in the south were the courts, the post office, and collection of tariff. I suppose that if there was as subsidized steamship line in Charleston or a trans-Mississippi railroad that the government was supporting then Lincoln might have mentioned them as well. But as far as the south was concerned, maintaining the forts, collecting the tariff, delivering the mail were the surest signs that the Federal government still was a presence down south. Denying the forces of rebellion possession of the forts or the ability to collect tariffs were signs to the outside world that they were not a government, regardless of what they said.