I also think it would have been good to avoid war. But for there to be peace, both sides needed to be able to have options and some freedom of action, and both sides needed to be able to save face.
When you say that your side is right and entitled to what it demands and the other side has to cede everything to them, you make war inevitable - at least if your adversary has any self-respect at all. When you say that the existence of a fort in the hands of the other side is itself an act of war, or that efforts to maintain such a fort constitute an act of war, justifying an armed response you make the war.
When you deny the other side breathing room and an opportunity to save face and demand that they give in to you absolutely, it's hard to see how you can blame anyone else for the war. It was people who thought as you do that made the war, and it's unfortunate that you haven't learned anything from their example.
That's why your claim not to have a dog in the fight or a horse in the race is so laughable. Of all the people here, you are the one with a dog in the fight. Most Americans don't know about or care about the Civil War, or take one side or the other in their view of the conflict. Of those who do, some say will admit that those on the other side had legitimate reason for acting as they did, while others don't give the matter much thought. Very few go to the lengths that you do to deny that the other side has any legitimacy at all.
Trouble is, this fort was a serious threat to their shipping. At least one Northern newspaper had already called for the guns of fort Sumter to be fired at Charleston to prevent them from getting out of the tariffs demanded by the Federal Government. Anderson's officers at Fort Sumter actually discussed using the guns of Fort Sumter to attack Charleston.
The Fort commanded the entrance to the harbor of Charleston, and it would scare away trade so long as the potential existed that those guns might open up on ships attempting to trade with Charleston.
So Fort Sumter was not merely an issue of face with the Confederates, it was a sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of Charleston's merchant traders. Of course it was also a slap in the face to the efforts of the Confederates to be seen as a legitimate government. A government that cannot control it's own territory, isn't a real government.
When you deny the other side breathing room and an opportunity to save face and demand that they give in to you absolutely, it's hard to see how you can blame anyone else for the war.
I've read discussions among Lincoln's cabinet that one of the things they feared most is that the Southerners would do nothing at all, and they would have a fort full of men doing nothing, and it would become an embarrassment. In the meantime the South would establish European trade and continue to behave as an independent state, and if it went on too long, it would become irrevocable.
That's why your claim not to have a dog in the fight or a horse in the race is so laughable. Of all the people here, you are the one with a dog in the fight.
I don't have an ancestor "dog" in the fight. I think we all have a "dog" in the fight when it comes to Federal overreach. I think much of modern federal overreach and modern judicial overreach stems from the consequences of the civil war.
Federalism was severely damaged by the Civil War, and in that regard, I think we all have a "dog" in that fight.
I was opposing Federal and Judicial overreach long before I ever thought of the civil war, and every time I looked at the roots of some horrible federal policy of judicial ruling, it kept tracing back to the 14th amendment and the Civil War.
Asserted here & elsewhere as if it were recognized fact.
I'm not aware of any law of the United States or anybody else at the time which confirms DiogenesLamp's bald-faced claim.