Lincoln and Ft. Sumter

[Rob Wick]

Which did not, and does not, make it so.

Best
Rob

[Bill Richter]

Madonna is completely correct. SC was an independent nation and the Union occupation of the fort was illegal and wrong and an invitation to war. If Lincoln did not want war, he should have pulled the USA out, not reinforced or fed it in any manner.

[Rob Wick]

I have no interest in the "was secession legal" discussion, as it never produces a clear answer. Suffice it to say, a few million in the north, and several in the south, didn't think it was, and we know how it ended.

Best
Rob

[L Verge]

Thank you to all for answers on both sides of the issue. One thing that your posts will do when I present them to my grandson to study is to prove that the central issues that sent our country into a civil war still have not been satisfactorily resolved in 150 years. If that's not a good history lesson, I don't know what is!

I especially appreciate the citations from Stampp, Catton, Foote, and Doubleday that will help support what his teacher said could not be documented. They may not be primary sources (except for Doubleday), but they are some pretty good secondary sources to quote. Of course, this is probably only one element of his final essay. Stay tuned for more - I trust my friends on this site more than I trust sending Aaron online, and I suspect that a middle school library will not be of much help.

[JMadonna]

Laurie,
The central issue of the civil war was POWER!
Who had it, who wanted it and what were they going to do with it.

[Thomas Thorne]

The firing on Fort Sumter was the culminating victory of the Southern political leadership that had a genius for winning empty symbolic victories-Kansas-Nebraska. Dred Scott,the acceptance of the Lecompton constitution and the sectional split of the Democratic party in 1860-at the dreadful purchase price of uniting the North,far superior in material resources, against them.

The Confederate leadership would have been well advised to take advantage of the inchoate human penchant to retain the status quo. The Gulf Coast Confederacy of 7 states existed. There was a buffer zone of 8 slave states,4 of whose allegiance to the Union was severely attenuated and 3 others whose allegiance was bitterly divided, between the Confederacy and its enemies. Most Northerners had believed Southern threats of secession were bluster. There was a growing awareness in the North that only force could dissolve the Confederacy but considerable reluctance to take the plunge and initiate civil war.

The Confederate attack on Fort Sumter was the deed that united Northern public opinion in a desire to fight to crush the Confederacy. When this unity flagged in the summer of 1862,it was replaced by the far narrower but ultimately far hardier idea of Emancipation that believed Slavery to be the rocket fuel of the rebellion.

It was therefore in the interest of the Confederacy to put the onus of starting the Civil War on Lincoln. If Lincoln had started the war, northern public opinion might have been too divided from the very start to permit a Union victory.

The continued Union occupation of Fort Sumter in Charleston and Fort Pickens in Pensacola-which never fell to the Confederacy-would not have been too expensive a price to fracture northern unity. Confederate leaders should have reminded themselves that in violation of the treaties ending the American Revolution, British troops occupied forts in the Old Northwest for 12 years after the Revolution. Fortunately, George Washington was much wiser than Jefferson Davis and did not pick a fight with a government whose resources were far greater than his own. The Jay treaty of 1795 finally saw the evacuation of British forces from the Old Northwest.


I believe it very unlikely that Confederate independence could have been secured in a similiar manner but the Confederate attack on Ft Sumter certainly maximized the number of their foes.
Tom

[Thomas Thorne]

My thoughts about Southern political leadership were stolen from David Potter's "The Impending Crisis" IMHO the best single volume work about the coming of the Civil War.

In 1853 the South controlled the Federal government thru the doughface President Franklin Pierce and enjoyed bi-sectional majorities in Congress. The Republican Party did not exist. Abraham Lincoln was so obscure that if he had died in 1853, his name would be known only by starving PHD candidates and their advisers writing about people opposed to the Mexican War.
Tom

[Bill Richter]

No, no, Tom. It was Lincoln's advantage to start the war over the firing on the national flag on a ship full of provisions. This was a way to bring the Democrats in on his side, stressing Union over what many in the North saw initially as a war for ending slavery. Remember that slavery was much more than a labor system. It was a social system, akin to the North's pre-war use of what later came to be called segregation or Jim Crow. Most Northerners did not want to face the question of what to do with the ex-slaves after they were freed. Take a look at Alex Stephens' discussion with Lincoln aboard the River Queen, I believe it was. When he asked Lincoln what was to happen to freed slaves, Lincoln replied "root hog, or die." Read Arthur Zilversmit, The First Emancipation: The Abolition of Slavery in the North; Eugene H. Berwanger, The Frontier against Slavery: Western Anti-Negro Prejudice and the Slavery Extension Controversy; and Lerone Bennett, Jr., Forced into Glory: Abraham Lincoln's White Dream.

[JMadonna]

An interesting sidelight as to who owned sovereignty to S.C. territory.

When S.C. left the Union it had unforeseen consequences going back to the revolution. In the Treaty of Paris in 1783, England made separate treaties for peace with both the U.S. and France.

Britain granted independence to the 13 colonies forming the United States. France got various territories and 2 clauses that re-established old treaties between the two countries and any territory taken before the war would be returned to the original owners.

France was in America twenty years before the British establishing a colony at Charlesfort (now Charleston S.C.). Through the numerous France/England wars in America - England made a treaty with France recognizing that Charlesfort was owned by France.

Since South Carolina broke up the U.S. by leaving it, South Carolina legal minds reasoned that the Treaty of Paris agreement between England and the U.S. was now null and void - but the treaty between England and France was still valid. Therefore, legally speaking, Charleston should now revert to French control.

Governor Pickens was shocked when told of this but was relieved when the French told him that they would not pursue their claim. Apparently he didn't feel the same way to U.S sovereignty claims for Fort Sumter.

[JMadonna]

Laurie,
Thought your grandson would like to know this.

Governor Pickens of South Carolina had offered to purchase Fort Sumter from the United States. A representative, Isaac Hayne, had delivered a letter to that effect to President Buchanan. Buchanan was now ready with his reply.

After talking it over with Secretary of War Holt, Buchanan thought it best that Holt respond to the request. It would be taken as a bit of a snub.

Holt asserted that buying a fort, particularly this one, was unusual. What South Carolina was really claiming was eminent domain over Sumter. This, said Holt, was not any more possible than Maryland claiming eminent domain over Washington DC. Both were Federal property.

So, no, the fort was not for sale and attacking it would bring about Civil War with the blood being on the hands of South Carolina.

http://civilwardailygazette.com/2011/02/...-for-sale/

[L Verge]

Great information, Jerry. Thanks so much. I think he told me he has another phase of the project due in about ten days, so I will pass this on.

You probably already know this, but there has been a good deal of talk in the past few decades about GIVING D.C. back to Maryland so that its citizens can have the right to vote. Hopefully Maryland won't touch it with a ten-foot pole.