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Re: May 6, 2011
In Response To: Re: May 6, 2011 ()

For what it is worth, and this is just my opinion, we today have the advantage of 20/20 hindsight for whatever that is worth.

In my opinion I believe that the War began January 9th 1861 with "the Star of the West incident". While there was much unrest throughtout the South, South Carolina was the only state to have legally seceeded at that time. All other states were still states of the United States, including Florida.

South Carolina had done nothing illegal in seceeding from the Union so that was not an act of War. Whether or not South Carolina could legally seceed was a matter of legal interpretation, But the right of the states to seceed was taught in the law schools of the United States at that time.

The seizure of any arsenal or government property then in South Carolina would also not have been a criminal act and would not have equaled an act of War since it would have been a natural action taken for the necessary protection of its people to prevent civil unrest.

Major Robert Anderson's occupation of Fort Sumter on the other hand up until that date could have been assumed to have been a defensive move as he had intimated, again fearing civil unrest, and therefore not necessarily an act of War.

However, the refusal to abandon Fort Sumter and it strategic position and the attempt to reenforce that garrison became a direct threat and demonstrated the intentions of the United States Government of either Buchannan or Lincoln to intimidate the people of South Carolina by the threat of economic isolation. Hence, whether that intent was in fact exercised or not is immaterial, the threat of a blockade of Charleston Harbor was present.

The threat of Blockade, or actual blockade, committed against a legally soverign nation State, is an act of War.

All other acts committed in other states prior to their secession in 1861 could have, in actuality, being under United States laws considered as acts of rebellion. Once those states actually seceeded that would have been a different matter.

That would not have been the case in South Carolina. Prior to it secession convention and the passage of that ordinance December 20th 1860 the state of South Carolina seized no properties belonging to the United States of America. Nor did it commit any illegal or treasonious acts before its secession. After it had seceeded it could not commit treason or criminal acts against the United States being a nation unto itself at that time and not a part of the United States.

It could have committed an act of war against the United States with the firing on the "Star of the West", but it did not since the "Star of the West" was inside South Carolina territorial waters at the time without the permission of the South Carolina Government officials as I believe that it had passed the picket boat.

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