‘The states and the people had an absolute and unalienable right to withdraw a ratification of the Constitution and withdraw from the Union. Still do.’
perhaps...but those same people had no inalienable right to seize and occupy Federal property by force, after having seceded, and then expect no retribution for it...
Oh. So the Civil War was about retribution.
Lincoln really was nuts.
Wasn’t that settled at Appomattox?
It ceased being Federal property when the state reassumed it's powers previously relinquished to the Federal Government.
Lincoln himself said that the land belongs to the people who live on it.
Lincoln created the necessity of attacking the fort by sending a fleet of warships to attack the confederates around it. Had Lincoln not sent those warships with their orders to use force, the confederates would not have attacked the fort.
General Beauregard even sent notice to Major Anderson that if he would refrain from using the guns of the fort to attack them when those warships arrived, he would make no move against the fort.
Anderson replied that if he fired at those ships, the fort would attack his forces. This answer made it impossible to leave the fort alone, or else Beauregard would have had to face cannon fire from two fronts simultaneously.