You are free to appeal to the popularity of a position if you desire. Just the same, I am free to offer my reasons for disagreeing with that position, be it popular or not, and in this case have done so.
Perhaps Lincoln said it best, when he pointed out that one party "would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish."
I would answer that, in typical Lincolnian fashion, he got it backwards. His side decided that it would rather make war than let the south govern itself. By contrast, the south decided it would rather accept that war and attempt to defend itself rather than submit to the coercion of its northern neighbor.
Had the secessionists accepted the result of the election, including the pledge of the victorious party to work for the repeal of Dred Scot and to restore the old policy of banning slavery in at least some of the Federal Territories, the war could have been avoided.
Just the same, had the Lincoln accepted the fact that the south no longer desired to be part of the union, including its act of secession which, more than any other possible course of action, had the result of permanently separating itself from those very same territories that the Lincoln claimed as his priority, the war would have been avoided. War was not a necessary consequence of secession and nothing in secession made it so that war was inevitable. Rather, war was chosen as the yankee policy for dealing with secession and its patron was none other than Abe Lincoln himself.
In the specific case of Fort Sumter, in 1827, the Secretary of War, a man named John C. Calhoun (!) had approved the construction of a new fort in the harbor. The first appropriations were made by Congress in 1828 and construction started on the harbor shoal. In November, 1834, after the Untied States had expended roughly $200,000, a person named Major William Laval, Esq., claimed title to the land which included the under-construction fort.
A South Carolina statute passed in 1791 established a method by which the state disposed of its vacant lands (we tend to forget that much of the territory of the states was empty in the Nineteenth Century: in the original thirteen states, this land was held by the states; in the remaining part of the country, it was held by the Federal government, except in Texas, where the public lands were retained by the state when it was admitted). Laval used the law to claim title to the land but he described it in a vague manner and given the lack of decent maps of any of the country, his vagueness hid the exact location of the tract he claimed.
When Laval appeared on the scene, he Corps of Engineers stopped work and asked for instructions. It appeared that Laval had filed a proper claim for the land except that the land was below low tide and therefore exempt from purchase.
Well South Carolina was aghast! They did not want to lose the fort to protect themselves, nor the payrolls that would come with the completed fort.
The result was a state law:
COMMITTEE ON FEDERAL RELATIONS
In the House of Representatives, December 31st, 1836
The Committee on Federal relations, to which was referred the Governor's message, relating to the site of Fort Sumter, in the harbour of Charleston, and the report of the Committee on Federal Relations from the Senate on the same subject, beg leave to Report by Resolution:
Resolved, That this state do cede to the United States, all the right, title and claim of South Carolina to the site of Fort Sumter and the requisite quantity of adjacent territory, Provided, That all processes, civil and criminal issued under the authority of this State, or any officer thereof, shall and may be served and executed upon the same, and any person there being who may be implicated by law; and that the said land, site and structures enumerated, shall be forever exempt from liability to pay any tax to this state.
Also resolved: That the State shall extinguish the claim, if any valid claim there be, of any individuals under the authority of this State, to the land hereby ceded.
Also resolved, That the Attorney-General be instructed to investigate the claims of Wm. Laval and others to the site of Fort Sumter, and adjacent land contiguous thereto; and if he shall be of the opinion that these parties have a legal title to the said land, that Generals Hamilton and Hayne and James L. Pringle, Thomas Bennett and Ker. Boyce, Esquires, be appointed Commissioners on behalf of the State, to appraise the value thereof. If the Attorney-General should be of the opinion that the said title is not legal and valid, that he proceed by seire facius of other proper legal proceedings to have the same avoided; and that the Attorney-General and the said Commissioners report to the Legislature at its next session.
Resolved, That this House to agree. Ordered that it be sent to the Senate for concurrence. By order of the House:
T. W. GLOVER, C. H. R.&
IN SENATE, December 21st, 1836
Resolved, that the Senate do concur. Ordered that it be returned to the House of Representatives, By order:
JACOB WARLY, C. S.
Poor Maj. Laval lost his scheme to blackmail the United States!
For those wishing to further pursue the ownership of Fort Sumter, et. al, most college and university libraries will have American State Papers: Documents Legislative and Executive of the Congress of the United States, Military Affairs, vol. 5, Twenty-third Congress, Second Session, No. 591, The Construction of Fort Sumter, Charleston Harbor, South Carolina,pp. 463-472.
The War Department became concerned in the 1890s that they might not have clear title to all of their various installations, so they had a civilian attorney in the Judge Advocate General's office research the chain of title. Fortunately for us, not only were the various National Cemeteries still War Department properties, but so were most of the forts used in the early Republic, the Civil War and the Indian Wars.
The result was James B. McCrellis, Military Reservations, National Military Parks, and National Cemeteries. Title and Jurisdiction, Washington: Government Printing Office, 1898. If you can not locate a hard copy, CIS has copied McCrellis on microfiche: U.S. Executive Branch Documents, 1789-1909: War Department, W 1002.8.
-- from the moderated ACW newsgroup.
Walt