Civil War History - Secession and PoliticsWas it Slavery, or was it States Rights? Perhaps it was the election of Lincoln? What were the real reasons for Southern Secession and what were the political issues in this time of war? Find your answers here in the Secession and Politics Disussion.
Please show us where...by agreement...between a state (any state) and the Federal gov't (in the acquisition of property for the construction of forts, &c)...it is either expressed or at all implied that such property and installations can be used ..against.. the people and state from which it was acquired?
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The purpose of the forts and other installations in South Carolina...was for the defense of the state.
When South Carolina seceded...that purpose (for Federal forces) no longer existed.
Continued occupation with hostile intent (which was obvious to all) voided any agreements by which the property was transferred.
Show us where it states in any agreement between the Federal government and the states that a fort can NOT be used against hostile forces in that state.
It's cute making up a straw man argument to get away from the real issue here, that Ft. Sumter and any of the land it had been built on, was ceded to the Federal government by the State of South Carolina. Fact, not fiction.
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
The following is the response to the claim I. W. Hayne, South Carolina's Attorney-General, had sent to President Buchanan on January 31, 1861. South Carolina was claiming Fort Sumter by right of eminent domain. Holt was replying to deny/refute that claim.
Regards,
Tim
Ok, Ft Sumpter was purchased, initially on long lease for the use of a Fort to be constructed, then much later on a full purchase price, due primarily to Congress inability to maintain the cost the long term lease being agreed between State and Government and disiring to own outright the proprty rights to the Fort by the US AG of the 1830s. Not all Federal Forts were fully purchsed and ownership passed from the states to the Union untill 1890 or so.
What the SC AG was pointing out that Congress had not paid that full purchase price, not had it mainatined in full the original long term lease payments part of the contracts, but had invested heavily in the construction costs of the Fort. Hence the legal forms of ownership revert to SC due to failure to fullfill the contractual obilgations,yes SC had passed full and complete tranfer of property to Congress, on the understanding Congress would actually a) pay the lease while construction of the Fort was undertaken, and B) much later, aquire full property rights after making full payment to SC, along with outstounding lease payments. Congress had never done so, which was in no small measure why it was not a federal post, as it was not federal property, and why the Pres and US AG were aghast when without orders Anderson moved to it.
The Federal government was using the fort with the intent to inflict injury upon the people of South Carolina- assisting in blockading the port of Charleston and training guns upon the same (with no state of war existing at the time).
This was not the original purpose for which the land was acquired and fort constructed...in fact 180 degrees from it.
Whatever contracts existing between the State of SC and the Federal government (regarding the land and fort) were voided at the moment the fort was used for purposes contrary for which it was built.
No hope with that line of argument, it rteminds me of S Douglas thoughts on the matter though, (We certainly cannot justify the holding of forts there, much less the recapturing of those which have been taken, unless we intend to reduce those States themselves into subjection. I take it for granted, no man will deny the proposition that whoever permanently holds Charleston and South Carolina is entitled to Fort Sumter.... Whoever holds the States in whose limits those forts are placed, is entitled to the forts themselves, unless there is something peculiar in the location of the same particular fort that makes it important to the general defense of the whole country, its commerce and interests, as in the case of Forts Taylor and Jefferson at Key West and Dry Tortugas. But Fort Sumter and other forts, in Charleston harbor; Fort Pulaski on the Savannah River; Fort Morgan and other forts in Alabama, were intended to guard the entrance to a particular harbor for local defense.) the original purpose of the Forts Calhoun put in motion, here and along the seaboard, was to defend SC and other States from Uk ships, there is no stipulation that the property once aquired cannot be used for another purpose in the lease or full transfer of property rights. Do Forts of the old west that later become centres of training and learning no longer belong to the Union but revert to the states?, i dont think so, and no court would agree with your intpretation i fear.
Besides theres a better argument to make!!.
The Statutes at Large of South Carolina (Columbia, South Carolina: A.S. Johnston, 1836), Volume V, page 501.
South Carolina had freely ceded property in Charleston Harbor to the federal Government in 1805, upon the express condition that "the United States... within three years... repair the fortifications now existing thereon or build such other forts or fortifications as may be deemed most expedient by the Executive of the United States on the same, and keep a garrison or garrisons therein." Failure to comply with this condition on the part of the Government would render "this grant or cession... void and of no effect."
The Southern States by secession were in rebellion against the Constitution of the United States. Reading the Confederate Constitution one can easily see how the southern states picked and choosed, that which they liked and that which they didn't like.
The "legality" of who owned Fort Sumter would rest on a force of arms. If the Confederate army won independence, Fort Sumter was Confederate. If the Union prevailed, Fort Sumter continued as a U.S. possession, as indicated in the U.S. Constitution.
The great mistake of the Confederacy was their inability to perceive that a great war would come. That the U.S. would fight to not only retain the land in its states, but the land in its territories. Economically, the South had to maintain slavery in its borders; it also needed to have the opportunity to sell slaves in the then territories of the United States. If slavery was banned in U.S. territories after secession, the Confederates needed to take possession of those territories and that meant a long war.
The Confederate States were not only a threat to decrease the size of the United States, they were a viable threat to the U.S. western territories. The Confederate States could not just go in peace. Slavery would stagnate in the southern states without the ability to move excess slaves to the territories. The Confederacy needed slavery and its economic advantages; it needed other places to sell slaves to maintain slave value. That meant sales to the territories of the United States.
Seems to me South Carolina could have seized Ft. Sumter before Anderson moved in.
There were many mistakes made on both sides in those hectic days. Most of those were more political than military.
IMHO, the firing on Sumter was not a good thing to have done. BUT, it WAS done. And it was a political mistake.
I am a true son of the South, and I fully expect the foregoing paragraph will bring retribution. However, nothing I have said detracts from the honor due the fighting men and women of the Confederacy.
It's cute making up a straw man argument to get away from the real issue here, that Ft. Sumter and any of the land it had been built on, was ceded to the Federal government by the State of South Carolina. Fact, not fiction.
The Southern States by secession were in rebellion against the Constitution of the United States. Reading the Confederate Constitution one can easily see how the southern states picked and choosed, that which they liked and that which they didn't like.
The "legality" of who owned Fort Sumter would rest on a force of arms. If the Confederate army won independence, Fort Sumter was Confederate. If the Union prevailed, Fort Sumter continued as a U.S. possession, as indicated in the U.S. Constitution.
The great mistake of the Confederacy was their inability to perceive that a great war would come. That the U.S. would fight to not only retain the land in its states, but the land in its territories. Economically, the South had to maintain slavery in its borders; it also needed to have the opportunity to sell slaves in the then territories of the United States. If slavery was banned in U.S. territories after secession, the Confederates needed to take possession of those territories and that meant a long war.
The Confederate States were not only a threat to decrease the size of the United States, they were a viable threat to the U.S. western territories. The Confederate States could not just go in peace. Slavery would stagnate in the southern states without the ability to move excess slaves to the territories. The Confederacy needed slavery and its economic advantages; it needed other places to sell slaves to maintain slave value. That meant sales to the territories of the United States.
Oh no, force of arms does not make legal right, (otherwise its lawfull and right to put people in ovens and burn them) it meerly settles the issue of who has the greater might, and every federal possesion was then and is now a joint property ownership of all the members of the Union.
Seems to me South Carolina could have seized Ft. Sumter before Anderson moved in.
Will,
Ft. Sumter was under construction at the time. Southerners openly boasted that the money the Federal government was spending to finish Sumter and repair Castle Pinckney/Fort Moultrie in December was going to benefit them as soon as they took possession. The idea seems to have been 'let the suckers keep on going".
Pretty much down in Louisiana, BTW. The state did not seize a Customs revenue cutter when they seized other property, because it was under construction in the yards. As long as the Federals kept spending money on it, they did not seize it. When the local Federal official cut off the spending, the state did seize it. Just playing a game, letting the Federals complete what they planned to seize.
The Confederacy needed slavery and its economic advantages; it needed other places to sell slaves to maintain slave value. That meant sales to the territories of the United States.
Kind of a nitpicky detail, Whitworth, but what kind of market was there for slaves in the territories? Seems to me that no crops requiring slave labor were grown therein. And that the farmers and pioneers moving into those areas could ill afford to drop a grand on a hired hand. To be sure, there were some upscale people setting up villages and planning railroads who might have wanted a servant, but we're not looking at much of a market.
Just a thought.
Ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
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