Ft. Sumter: The First Act of Aggression

Evidence has clearly shown that any argument that attempts to support the premise that the Lincoln administration committed the first act of aggression is based on buffoonery.

The word "buffoonery" is entirely to gracious. Deliberate misfeasance (e.g. lies) would be closer to the truth.
Somewhere, someone posted a list of the CSA acts of aggression before the April act of aggression on Sumter - including the action of the Citadel cadets on Star of the West in: On (January 9) in 1861, a Union merchant ship, the Star of the West, is fired upon as it tries to deliver supplies to Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. This incident was the first time shots were exchanged between North and South, although it (did) not trigger the Civil War

As I recall there were a number of incidents - I think before Jan 9 - when U.S. ships were fired upon. I think they were all on the Mississippi river. Can someone repost them for me? I will keep my opinion out of this.
 
...and Linclon continued....

"I therfore consider in the view of the Constitution and Laws the Union is unbroken. and to the extent of my ability, I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins uopon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States. Doing this I deem to be only a simple duty on my part, and I shall peerform it as far as practicable unless my rightful master, the American people, shall withdraw the requisite means or in some authoritative manner direct the contrary. I trust this will not be regaarded as a menace, but only as the declaared purpose of the Union that it will constitutionally defend and maintain itself."

Lincoln First Inaugural, Mar. 4, 1861
 
IMO, the evidence presented to southern agents, on the ownership of Ft. Sumter, is irrefuteable and says all that needs to be said as to the 'Legal' status of Ft. Sumter, before, during and even after its reduction by rebel forces.
He cited the Constitution and its laws and historical precedents set throughout the life of the Constituonal gov't of all the states of the Union.
Citing personal conviction as a source of law or precents of any kind, may be of some comfort to those who have nothing else, but a President and his gov't cand and should, as a matter of common intelligence, demand more than that to justify insurrection and Rebellion.



P.S. I do not have the Sec'ys replym, but, if my memory serves, he makes no ref. to secession at all, i.e., he does not, and logically, Buchanan, does not recognize that secession even exists, much less that it actually occured.
 
Is it opinion that Lincoln orchestrated the Confederates to fire on Fort Sumter ? Is it fact ? or is it how one wishes to "see" it ?


Was there ever a real United States declaration of war, at all? I understand there was some congressional rubber-stamping of what President Lincoln had been doing already through his executive decree (or order, same thing). Lincoln was. (EDITED BY MODERATOR...MODERN POLITICAL CONTENT) the face of their ideology, like the name brand recognitions of (EDITED BY MODERATOR...MODERN POLITICAL CONTENT)"Mr. Lincoln's War," the idea of making the man in the executive a target for the party opposition behind which the electing party may then gather, and cower down in relative safety... or even make him into an outright puppet for the party's platform.

In Lincoln's March 4, 1861 inaugural, he makes it clear that save beyond the collection of duties and imposts, there will be no invasion. Anti-federalist Southerners have always read this as a threat; a unilateral war declaration. And while the North refused to grant Buchanan any historical legitimacy at all with his two armistice attempts between a pair of Southern-based US forts, in Charleston and in Pensacola, the idea of a US Naval invasion sounds quite proper in the face of threatening to disallow the reprovisioning a fort. But, again, to what purpose should the North provision such a fort, at all? For those duties and imposts?

I like the idea that all wars are over money. Slaves were money. Tariffs are money. "Northern legislation against southern interests" is also about money. Everything that is a bone contention is a tax, at the end of the day.

In my view, if the South seceded, it was over money. If Lincoln invaded, it was over money. If the South lost, it was over money. If two political parties have ever and always divided us along any lines, at all, these lines are monetary.
 
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...I like the idea that all wars are over money. Slaves were money. Tariffs are money. "Northern legislation against southern interests" is also about money. Everything that is a bone contention is a tax, at the end of the day...

Welcome to the forum. I have to say that this sounds like a bias. When you "like an idea", and formulate your opinions about history based on that idea, it should send up all kinds of red flags. Much better to look at the evidence and base your opinions on that, rather than to try to mold the evidence to fit into an idea that you like.

Historically wars have been over a lot of things, not just money. Many wars were fought before money even existed. Wars are complicated things. Economics is a complicated thing. And two such complicated entities can't help but overlap. But assuming that because they overlap one must have caused the other is a logical fallacy known as c-u-m hoc ergo propter hoc. (And you might find that our automatic site censor here gets a little carried away at times, like the word I hide to spell out with dashes. :wink:)
 
Welcome to the forum. I have to say that this sounds like a bias. When you "like an idea", and formulate your opinions about history based on that idea, it should send up all kinds of red flags. Much better to look at the evidence and base your opinions on that, rather than to try to mold the evidence to fit into an idea that you like.

Historically wars have been over a lot of things, not just money. Many wars were fought before money even existed. Wars are complicated things. Economics is a complicated thing. And two such complicated entities can't help but overlap. But assuming that because they overlap one must have caused the other is a logical fallacy known as c-u-m hoc ergo propter hoc. (And you might find that our automatic site censor here gets a little carried away at times, like the word I hide to spell out with dashes. :wink:)


Thank you for you welcome! And I thought that any 'dirty Latin' was actually in the form of the Romance languages!! LOL!

In what I can read so far, the ideas for causes range from states rights and state sovereignty all the way to preserving slavery as an art form, and ending political differences with a country who is more like the English in character than with the original eastern seaboard colonials. In this, my mental Venn diagram encloses the shared area of money. That was why I selected it as my choice to explain both causes at once.
 
Is it opinion that Lincoln orchestrated the Confederates to fire on Fort Sumter ?

That notion is insulting to the Confederates, frankly. They had free will. They had a choice, and they made it. They were not political neophytes, tricked into doing something they didn't want to by the Machiavellian scheming by the Lincoln administration. The secessionist camp included some of the most experienced and brightest politicians of the age, starting at the top with Jefferson Davis. They ended up choosing badly, but never forget that they chose to act as they did.

The reality is that, by April 1861, the fire-eaters in Charleston had put themselves in a vise of their own design, caught on the one hand by their own rhetoric, and on the other by Lincoln's unwillingness to flat-out capitulate to their demands. It was a bad position to be in, but it was a position of their own making.
 
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The word "buffoonery" is entirely to gracious. Deliberate misfeasance (e.g. lies) would be closer to the truth.
Somewhere, someone posted a list of the CSA acts of aggression before the April act of aggression on Sumter - including the action of the Citadel cadets on Star of the West in: On (January 9) in 1861, a Union merchant ship, the Star of the West, is fired upon as it tries to deliver supplies to Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. This incident was the first time shots were exchanged between North and South, although it (did) not trigger the Civil War

As I recall there were a number of incidents - I think before Jan 9 - when U.S. ships were fired upon. I think they were all on the Mississippi river. Can someone repost them for me? I will keep my opinion out of this.

This post http://civilwartalk.com/threads/the-south-started-the-war.103867/page-5#post-955276 mentions several such incidents on the Mississippi. The A.O. Tyler mentioned later became the Union gunboat Tyler and had an active career on the rivers, including a raid up the Tennessee and providing gunfire support to Grant's embattled army at Shiloh.
 
That notion is insulting to the Confederates, frankly. They had free will. They had a choice, and they made it. They were not political neophytes, tricked into doing something they didn't want to by the Machiavellian scheming by the Lincoln administration. The secessionist camp included some of the most experienced and brightest politicians of the age, starting at the top with Jefferson Davis. They ended up choosing badly, but never forget that they chose to act as they did.

The reality is that, by April 1861, the fire-eaters in Charleston had put themselves in a vise of their own design, caught on the one hand by their own rhetoric, and on the other by Lincoln's unwillingness to flat-out capitulate to their demands. It was a bad position to be in, but it was a position of their own making.

I usually agree with you but here I think you err by overlooking the truth about Lincoln.
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Eh, maybe I'll continue posting the links. Ignored evidence, proof and historical record is still evidence, proof and historical record even eyes are closed, fingers are in ears and "la la la la" can be loudly heard from mouths.
from "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down"
The night they drove old Dixie down, and the bells were ringing,
The night they drove old Dixie down, and the people were singin. they went
La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la,
 
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