alt.war.civil.usa

On Sep 14, 1:52 pm, Mike Griffith < ...@ >
wrote:

> Now, if we're talking about the secession of the Upper South, by far
> the most important factor was those states' strong objection to
> maintaining the Union by force. Those states had recently *rejected*
> slavery as a reason for secession, and they did so by pretty hefty
> margins. In fact, Unionism was on the rise in those states--until
> Lincoln attempted to maintain the occupation of Fort Sumter with an
> armed naval convoy and then made it clear he was going to use the
> attack he provoked as a pretext for invasion.

Let's follow your "reasoning" for a moment.

According to you, Lincoln would have done better to thwart the
establishment of the CSA by sitting on his hands at Sumter, because of
the resurgent Unionism that was appearing even at the time. Of
course, as you know (or should know), Lincoln placed great store by
such resurgent Unionism. Let's set aside for the moment your notion
of a decided rejection of secession in these areas, and let's not
overlook that many of the votes to reject secession at this moment
were due to the fact that the upper South feared the impact of a war
on their slaves.

Then there's no good reason for Lincoln to move at Sumter. He was in
fact willing to consider the abandonment of Sumter if it meant that
the upper South would stay in the Union. He did not get that
guarantee. But who would benefit by the opening of armed conflict at
Sumter? Why, my gosh, it would be the Confederacy! Jeff Davis would
force Lincoln into a cormer. Either Lincoln would face the
humiliation of backing away or be forced into responding in such a way
as to promote the secession movement in the upper South.

Davis acted as he did because he stood to benefit. He was not
Lincoln's tool.