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.
Not only might abandoning the fort would have left it open to seizure by South Carolina or the Confederacy but, more importantly, have sent out the impression that Lincoln was going to be as unconcerned about secession as his predecessor was. Regardless of one's own view on whether saving the Union was a Good Thing or not, we need to consider the perspectives of those who were in a position to act on their beliefs.
Lincoln had chafed at the Constitution all his failed political career. Was he also to act upon his 'beliefs'? What if his beliefs are to FORCE everyone else to his way of political thinking, and drive the states into secession?
He was supposed to be a PRESIDER; a PRE-SI-DENT.
An executive, not a legislator nor a judge.
This is most often forgotten, in his 'greatness', none of which would ever even be alleged had he not gone dictator to make it happen...
I am researching the ownership of the fort, now...
I think there may be a legal question here, in re timeliness of the US Government.
And you are right; Lincoln was a bully, if there has ever been a textbook definition of one!
One thing he would have never been, had he lived... was everyone's president. He had sectionally so sold out to his collectivist mob that Booth had to declare that it was he who shot Lincoln, and not the line formed at the rear!
Beowulf
Many people have traced the ownership of the fort before this. The fact that the Federal Government owned the place is rock-solid. After an attempt to claim otherwise by a scam artist named William Laval in 1834, the South Carolina legislature made sure the US title was crystal clear. The work already started was halted in late 1834 while things were sorted out; Laval's claim was invalidated by the state legislature in December 1837; and the South Carolina Secretary of State finally recorded the US title in the state records on November 22, 1841, with work beginning again earlier that year under an arrangement between the state and federal governments.
Imagine what you will. This is the truth of the matter. The state of South Carolina had given title in the land to the Federal government 20 years before the fort was attacked by the Confederacy.
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
For someone who can't find the time to provide backup for the "promises broken" claim, Beowulf, you certainly seem to have time to weave tall tales about pretty much everything else. Or were you just blowing smoke?
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
Regardless of one's own view on whether saving the Union was a Good Thing or not, we need to consider the perspectives of those who were in a position to act on their beliefs.
A most judicious observation, Oxkern. Upon becoming the chief executives, neither Davis nor Lincoln could change their positions on Sumter. If Lincoln had evacuated the fort, he would have earned overwhelming execration. If Davis didn't take the fort, the same fate awaited him.
The fort was no threat to Charleston, nor could it have been held long -- even if it had been re-supplied. The Confederacy didn't really need it to protect the harbor; the Union didn't really need it either. It was a symbol, the chip, the political line in the sand -- nothing more. Had there been face-saving measures on both sides, the existing differences between the sides would still have been all but insurmountable.
I have to believe that Davis knew the ramifications of what he was doing when he signed the order to open fire. He would get a few more states to side with the Confederacy, and he would suffer the wrath of a thoroughly exasperated North.
Could he have done otherwise? Probably not, given the temperment whipped up by the ultras. As has been pointed out, he wanted Ft. Pickens as well. That he was never able to accomplish.
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
Many people have traced the ownership of the fort before this. The fact that the Federal Government owned the place is rock-solid. After an attempt to claim otherwise by a scam artist named William Laval in 1834, the South Carolina legislature made sure the US title was crystal clear. The work already started was halted in late 1834 while things were sorted out; Laval's claim was invalidated by the state legislature in December 1837; and the South Carolina Secretary of State finally recorded the US title in the state records on November 22, 1841, with work beginning again earlier that year under an arrangement between the state and federal governments.
Imagine what you will. This is the truth of the matter. The state of South Carolina had given title in the land to the Federal government 20 years before the fort was attacked by the Confederacy.
Tim
So.
Americans weren't checking any deeds when they took British forts in the Revolutionary War.
__________________ POWER & MONEY
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
Americans weren't checking any deeds when they took British forts in the Revolutionary War.
Wrong war, Battalion. Different time; different circumstances; different enemies.
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
For someone who can't find the time to provide backup for the "promises broken" claim, Beowulf, you certainly seem to have time to weave tall tales about pretty much everything else. Or were you just blowing smoke?
Daily reminder.
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
Americans weren't checking any deeds when they took British forts in the Revolutionary War.
True enough: those were criminal acts of treason and rebellion against the British crown. No American was claiming they were legal acts that I have ever heard of, or that they had any "right" other than the hoped-for "natural right of revolution" to justify them.
Good to see you finally acknowledging that all those scessionists acted illegally in seizing federal forts, arsenals, money, bullion, Mints, Arsenals, ships, etc. It is nice to know you are finally coming around to accepting the truth.
The difference, largely, is that the rebels of 1776 acknowledged their acts of revolution and understood clearly the risk that they (and their families) might be executed if they lost. The secessionists of 1861 hid behind a theoretical legal "right of secession", claiming they were acting legally as they broke laws repeatedly. The Founding Fathers at least showed themselves as willing to be responsible for their own acts.
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
As to the promises made by Lincoln's cabinet to evacuate the fort, and their incumbent treachery to both provoke and deceive, are they not found in these and other of my posts?
As to the promise not to reprovision Sumter with arms and men, I believe this is handled in the Hostilities thread? Lincoln had eight warships loaded to the gills, and not 'provisions only'...
Captain Gustavus Fox is also mentioned in the WAR CONSPIRACY OF 1861, and his acts of war in being a spy for Washington at Sumter are also documented...
Even if secession by the Confederate states was legal (a dubious proposition at best) the actions of siezing arsenals, mints, forts and other Federal property was clearly illegal. The property was legally titled in the Federal government and a state, even if it legally seceded, would not have the right to unilaterally transfer title to itself and certainly not to use force to accomplish a transfer of title.
Even if the Confederate States were entitled to some kind of "settling up" with the government over property and national debts, they did not have a unilateral right to determine which assets they wanted and to sieze same by force.
None of the the neo-Cons have yet answered my question about the parallels between Fort Sumter and Guantanano Bay. Are the Cubans legally entitled to attack Gitmo because it is an affront to their sovereignty?
__________________ "There must be more historians of the Civil War than there were generals figthing in it... Of the two groups, the historians are the more belligerent." David Donald, Lincoln Reconsidered (1961)
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