[DiogenesLamp]

I would further point out that Lincoln's cabinet all thought it was pointless to keep Fort Sumter, and Secretary Seward opined that even if they did supply the fort, that it would be a useless fort accomplishing nothing six months later.

“Suppose the expedition successful, we have then a garrison in Ft. Sumter that can defy assault for six months. What is it to do then? Is it to make war by opening its batteries and attempting to demolish the defenses of Charleston? …..I would not initiate war to regain a useless and unnecessary position on the soil of the seceding States.”

http://www.tulane.edu/~sumter/InitialProb/Seward.FullAd.html

What is it to do then?

Well Lincoln said it did more service by falling than it could have ever done otherwise.

In other words, the fort was useless for everything but a cause of war, and that is exactly what Lincoln used it to accomplish.

[Rockingham]

If Fort Sumter had remained in Union hands, it would have been useful as an observation post reporting on Confederate port activity, especially blockade runners. As it was, holding Fort Sumter caused the new Confederate government to manifest its intentions as other than peaceful.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp quoting Union Secretary of State Seward:

"Suppose the expedition successful, we have then a garrison in Ft. Sumter that can defy assault for six months.
What is it to do then?
Is it to make war by opening its batteries and attempting to demolish the defenses of Charleston? …..
I would not initiate war to regain a useless and unnecessary position on the soil of the seceding States."

I would call that a mild questioning by the Union Secretary of State as opposed to the total rebuke of Jefferson Davis by the Confederate Secretary of State, Robert Toombs:

"Mr. President, at this time it is suicide, murder, and will lose us every friend at the North.
You will wantonly strike a hornet's nest which extends from mountain to ocean, and legions now quiet will swarm out and sting us to death.
It is unnecessary; it puts us in the wrong; it is fatal.[14]"

Our FRiend DiogenesLamp is ever so quick to post the Seward quote, but always pretends there was no such Confederate quote.

But there was.

DiogenesLamp: "...the fort was useless for everything but a cause of war, and that is exactly what Lincoln used it to accomplish."

Fort Sumter was Union property manned by Union troops, just one property among many seized by Confederates, some even before they formally declared secession.
Lincoln saw his duty to recover those properties, without war if possible, with war if necessary.

But the decision for war was Jefferson Davis's, a decision he had no hesitancy making, despite dire warnings from Secretary Toombs.