Could the Confederacy seperate peacefully?

What if instead of firing on Fort Sumter the Confederacy allowed it to be restocked. Cold this eventually lead to a treaty that allowed the orignal confederacy to secced. This would be a much smaller coutry without Tennesee,Virgina, Arkansas or North Carolina (am I missing any). So would it be possible if say those 4 states threaten secesion if they were forced into a war with their southern brothers that maybe Licoln makes a treaty with the south.
 

Typo

Banned
Not with Lincoln in charge.

If Fort Sumter is restocked, then Lincoln will simply keep pushing until the south 1) Act hostilely or 2) reduced to being back to the union anyway.
 
The best chance of avoiding Fort Sumter would have been for the garrison to have stayed in their original indefensible location on the mainland rather than sneaking out to the more defensible Fort Sumter. That could have happened either through more vigilant or lucky confederate militias catching the troops early in the operation, or through a different federal commander who adhered more closely to the letter of his orders or simply didn't make a decision like a few other commanders did. If the Federal troops had remained on the mainland, they would have probably been forced to surrender in fairly short order, with no chance of resupply, especially if the confederates took over the initially unmanned (except for a few workmen) Fort Sumter. That's actually another possibility: the confederates take over Fort Sumter before the federal garrison moves there. Yet another possibility: Fort Sumter was actually built by the South Carolina state government, then turned over to the feds. I suppose South Carolina could have hung onto it, or turned it into something other than a fort, in which case it wouldn't have become a flashpoint

If the garrison at Fort Sumter had not been a flashpoint, there were other potential flashpoints, most notably a federal garrison in Florida. Unlike Fort Sumter though, the Florida garrison didn't dominate one of the biggest southern harbors and a major southern city. The south might have been content to let it sit with confederate forces watching it.

As to whether or not the confederates could have been allowed to go without a fight: That's a tough one. Lincoln obviously wouldn't want that outcome. At the same time, there was some sentiment in the North to "Let the Wayward Sisters Go." There was also widespread sentiment in the border states against bringing the seceded states back by military force. Lincoln had to be careful not to appear to be the initiator of a war on fellow Americans.

Historically, Lincoln was much more canny than the Confederate leadership. He maneuvered them into a position where they were likely to fire first, though they didn't absolutely have to. The confederates made their position worse after Fort Sumter by commissioning privateers to attack Union ships.

Probably the more interesting question is: could a more politically canny confederate leadership have been able to make it politically impossible or politically not worth it for the Union to attack? I'm not sure about that one. They might have pushed harder to get Federal garrisons out during the 5 months of Buchanan administration that happened after Lincoln got elected. They could have pushed for that on the grounds that the garrisons were a cause of ongoing friction and that they simply couldn't guarantee their safety. They could have urged southerners in the various branches of the federal government to remain at their posts until the feds recognized the confederacy, especially Senators and Congressmen. That would have given Lincoln an interesting dilemma: there is no basis for removing a duly elected Senator or Representative, but keeping those guys in Congress would be absurd, and it would make the war effort much more difficult. Good luck on getting war appropriations past a southern filibuster.

President Buchanan shares a lot of the blame for the Civil War. He tried to kick the can down the road to the next administration, without making the tough decisions that needed to be made. A more forceful president could have probably prevented secession from developing much of a head of steam. A state legislature meets to vote to secede? The federal government calls up militia units from loyal states and moves them into the state, maybe a few miles from the state capitol, maybe in the streets outside the legislative chambers. If they vote to secede, you arrest them for treason. Not sure if that would work. Not sure it wouldn't just set things off earlier.

One thing that makes this one tricky is that it depends so much on public opinion, and on the opinions of people within the army and the rest of the government. How would they have reacted to any of the situations we've touched on? I don't know for sure, and I've seen no evidence that anyone else does.
 
Although I haven't really seen anything specific on this, I have heard that the politically deft move for a seceding state to have made, would have been to sue for secession. I am not sure about the jurisdictional question, I would think such a suit by an individual state against the federal government to legally secede from the Union might get kicked up to the Supreme Court immediately. In 1860, I think the make-up of the Supreme Court was the same as it had been for the Dred Scot decision of a few years earlier. Such a Supreme Court might be more pro state sovereignty and rule that a State could, under the right circumstances, legally secede, with some sort of payment to the Federal Government for any federal facilities that become the propoerty of the newly independent state. If such a decision were to be handed down before Lincoln's inauguration, then, Linclon would have had no legal, and very little moral authority to try and force any legally seceded state back into the Union. If he had tried, he might have brought on a rebellion all over the South and West and maybe cause Britain to side with the independent seceded states.
 
one problem for the south was that secession wasn't widely popular there at first; in all but one state (TX), the votes for secession passed by skinny margins, and it could easily have went the other way in some of them. Nearly half the Confederate voters were of the 'let's wait and see what happens' attitude... right up until the attack on Fort Sumter. If the south had sought to secede peacefully, they would likely have faced a storm or protest at home first. Even if it succeeds, the CSA might be missing the four states of the 'Upper south', since these didn't join until after the war started...
 
Although I haven't really seen anything specific on this, I have heard that the politically deft move for a seceding state to have made, would have been to sue for secession. SNIPPED .

Actually, Jefferson Davis was hopeing to get secession into the courts. He deliberately saved in DC and attended Senate sessions after
Mississippi seceeded. He was waiting to be arrested, and then to test secession in the courts.
 
Although I haven't really seen anything specific on this, I have heard that the politically deft move for a seceding state to have made, would have been to sue for secession. I am not sure about the jurisdictional question, I would think such a suit by an individual state against the federal government to legally secede from the Union might get kicked up to the Supreme Court immediately. In 1860, I think the make-up of the Supreme Court was the same as it had been for the Dred Scot decision of a few years earlier.

There had been three changes.Justice Curtis, one of the Dred Scott dissenters, died in 1857 and was replaced by Nathan Clifford.

Justice Daniel, one of the majority, had died in 1860. Buchanan had appointed Jeremiah S Black to replace him, but in Feb 1861 the Senate rejected him by one vote.

Justice Campbell had resigned and returned to Alabama when it seceded. Nothing had been done about replacing him.

Taney, Clifford and Justice Nelson might have had some sympathy for a suit for secession. However, the other members of the Dred Scott Majority were Andrew Jackson appointees, and were unshakeably Unionist. So at best the suit fails 4-3, even without considering anyone Lincoln might appoint.
 
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I don't think Taney would have either. The write to own slaves which is implicitly written into the Constitution (3/5ths compromise and the 1808 slave trade restriction) is different than leaving the Union and "nullifying" the union. Something Taney a devout Jacksonite himself would IMHO disagree with. However this area is not my strong suit. I think with the effective ending of debate on Nullification in the 1832 proclamation by Jackson (a document Lincoln quoted for his inaugural address btw) that it was a legally closed door in the SC's mind.
 
I was just thinking (Im not sure if I would write a TL or not. Im busy and Im not sure how accurate it would be) but its jusst all the time It seems if the South gains independence then they're always enemies. If the US actually recongized the CSA then they would have no reason to be at odds with britain or Canada.
Anyone see the possibility of a Sword, Gold, Juno, Utah, Omaha and Dixie beaches on a certain day in June 1944
 
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