Lincoln and Ft. Sumter

[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