My thoughts exactly. So fixated on hate of the government, you overlook the individual rights of slaves.
Beauregard didn't fire on Sumpter until long after they'd given them notice to leave. In fact, it wasn't until Lincoln deliberately decided to re-supply Sumpter by ship that he gave the order to fire.
On what right does a State compel a property owner to leave just because the State wants to change its form of government? Under the federal constitution, the feds can only construct forts with the consent of the State in which the fort is to be constructed. And I expect at the time Sumter was built, we were still giving heed to that requirement. Having given consent for the feds to take control of that land, the State essentially gave the land to the feds and lost all rights to evict them.
Lincoln had every chance to recognize the state's sovereignty, recognize that nothing in the constitution forbade secession. .... It was unconstitutional to prevent SC's secession.
Agreed.
It was equally unconstitutional to occupy their territory after secession.
Disagree. Even had the feds recognized SC's right to secede, it would have retained title to the land and the fort. Prudence would have been to negotiate terms for SC to purchase the fort and improvements.
Prudence would have been for SC and the rest of the slave States to recognize the unspeakable injustice of slavery and to have brought it to a peaceful end long before it reached the boiling point of war.
Moreover, don't even try to raise the slavery issue.
Why not? South Carolina did in the first paragraph of her
secession document:
To wit:
"The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other
slaveholding States, she forbore at that time to exercise this right...."
Forms of the word slave or slaveholding appear 18 times in that document.
"an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations"
"A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free," and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction."
"On the 4th day of March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the judicial tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States"
"Taxes" appears only once, and that in reference to the direct taxes on the 3/5ths of a person each slave counted toward for such purposes.
"Tariffs" appears not at all.
Now, I believe the War Between the States was a violation of the Constitutional right to secede. But I believe slavery to be a greater evil than not being permitted to secede.
Lincoln said in his first inaugural address that he intended to collect import duties from southern ports. Various parts of the northern population might have rightfully been opposed to slavery, but Lincoln wanted control and fedgov income from import taxes. In fact, Lincoln is on record saying slavery was not his issue. He would save the union by freeing the slaves, or save the union by letting them stay enslaved. He wanted to unconstitutionally force union on secessionist states.
He is also on record as believing the nation cannot survive half free, half slave and that slavery must end.
Whatever he may have said, South Carolina's own secession document makes clear that for them--mistaken or not about Lincoln's views on slavery--they are seceding almost exclusively over the issue of slavery.
And once the war started, and then dragged on beyond the four month walk in the park expected by the Union soldiers looking to punch their tickets of manhood and adventure, Lincoln made clear his intent to end slavery at numerous times including in his Emancipation Proclamation.
Some important balances of power between the States and feds were destroyed with the War. Lincoln shredded individual rights in his waging of the war. And Reconstruction after his assassination was a crime that damaged not only the South, but the nation, and quite arguable race relations for the next century.
But the war brought about the end of slavery. It ended the greatest abuse of individual rights in our nation's history.
Furthermore, as an anarchist, you have no more love for State governments than you do the federal government. Ultimately what gives a "coercive [State] government" any more legitimacy than held by the federal government? Especially a State government that places such a high value on enslaving a substantial portion of its population?
If an anarchist wants to look to an example of government abuse of rights, he might look to something other than the feds not recognizing the right of a slave State to secede for the express purpose of continuing slavery. Rather, he might point to the State government's extreme efforts--including attacking their brethren at Fort Sumter--to continue the indefensible abuse of individual rights that is slavery.
That is, if he loved individual liberty more than he hated government.
Charles