Posted on 04/12/2009 5:56:49 AM PDT by mainepatsfan
April 12, 1861
Fort Sumter fired upon The American Civil War begins when Confederates fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.
The fort had been the source of tension between the Union and Confederacy for several months. After South Carolina seceded, the state demanded the fort be turned over but Union officials refused. A supply ship, the "Star of the West," tried to reach Fort Sumter on January 9, but the shore batteries opened fire and drove it away. For both sides, Sumter was a symbol of sovereignty. The Union could not allow it to fall to the Confederates, although throughout the Deep South other federal installations had been seized. For South Carolinians, secession meant little if the Yankees still held the stronghold. The issue hung in the air when Abraham Lincoln took the oath of office on March 4, stating in his inauguration address: "You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors."
Lincoln did not try to send reinforcements but he did send in food. This way, Lincoln could characterize the operation as a humanitarian mission, bringing, in his words, "food for hungry men." He sent word to the Confederates in Charleston of his intentions on April 6. The Confederate Congress at Montgomery, Alabama, had decided on February 15 that Sumter and other forts must be acquired "either by negotiation or force." Negotiation, it seemed, had failed. The Confederates demanded surrender of the fort, but Major Robert Anderson, commander of Fort Sumter, refused.
At 4:30 a.m. on April 12, the Confederate guns opened fire. For thirty-three hours, the shore batteries lobbed 4,000 shells in the direction of the fort. Finally, the garrison inside the battered fort raised the white flag. No one on either side had been killed, although two Union soldiers died when the departing soldiers fired a gun salute, and some cartridges exploded prematurely. It was a nearly bloodless beginning to America's bloodiest war.
Because you arent going to change your opinion and you damned sure are not going to change mine.
As you say. But that's no reason to allow your claim to go unchallenged.
Was he right there as well?...
It seems you're interested in proving who is "right", or at least in arguing.
Is it "right" to deprive another of his life, liberty or property without his consent, by force or threat of force?
The drafters of the Declaration of Independence thought not, and felt that when governments became threatening of these, that the consent of the governed was forfeit. That, I believe, was one of Spooner's key assertions about the Constitution - that it could never bind one to its provisions who had not agreed to them. Do you believe that governments are always right, and that the governed can never withdraw their consent? Wasn't that the point of secession as put forward by even Abraham Lincoln himself in January, 1848?
"Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them better.This is a most valuable, a most sacred right--a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much territory as they inhabit"
Granted, Lincoln's government subverted his prior opinion and did so with might of arms. So, those who rose up, could not, did not, have the "power" - but does that make them wrong or the ones who imposed union by might... "right"?
Do, after all, the ends justify the means?
Or...
Is there perhaps some absolute...
Transcendent...
Justice...
justly pursued?
Slavery was and is evil.
Putting hundreds of thousands of free men to their deaths in war was also evil and not the way to end either the secession or slavery.
Unless might makes right.
For one third of the Southern population, apparently it was.
Wasn't that the point of secession as put forward by even Abraham Lincoln himself in January, 1848?
Lincoln was talking about rebellion, not secession. Hence the part about 'having the power'. But the right of rebellion is not absolute, the government can and will oppose rebellion and try and suppress it.
Unless might makes right.
What made the Southern cause right and the Union cause wrong?
This isnt chat and I dont have all day to play
We used to sell wheat to the “Star of the West” milling company. Now I know where the cool name came from.
The most prominent design element on the elCid class ring is a Star, signifying the event.
Addressing that destroyer of our Republic as “Mr.” is IMHO taking it a tad overboard..
Something along the lines of Mad Man or Satins spawn suits him better.
If we would worship at the alter of Saint Lincoln like “N-S” then lord would be in order
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