No firing at Fort Sumter

The Battle of Fort Sumter (April 12-14, 1861) was the bombardment and surrender of Fort Sumter, near Charleston, South Carolina.
Suppose there was no Battle of Fort Sumter.
Would the Civil War have been delayed?
 
Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas, and Tennessee did not secede until after Fort Sumter and President Lincoln's call for volunteers.
Would these states have seceded without that?
 
Fort Sumter could have been removed as the flashpoint of conflict in two different ways. First, it is possible that if Lincoln had learned that Fort Pickens had been successfully reenforced, he would have been willing to abandon Fort Sumter. https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/N0-1Af2GpMU/a9T5xdLtn-oJ Second, even if Lincoln did not abandon Fort Sumter, the Confederacy could have taken the attitude that Fort Sumter could do them no harm and was no more than symbolic irritant. Robert Toombs allegedly said of an attack on Sumter, "It is unnecessary; it puts us in the wrong; it is fatal."

In either case, the immediate crisis is avoided, but IMO civil war is only delayed a bit. Most likely, the next crisis will come from an attempt by Lincoln to collect the revenues offshore. A nation claiming to be independent can allow a foreign nation to have a couple of forts in its territory--plenty of nations after all have allowed US bases on their soil. What it *cannot* allow is to have a foreign nation collect revenues on its imports. As Thomas Clingman of North Carolina said:

"I confess, Mr. President, that I do not know whether or not I understand
the views of [Buchanan's] message exactly on some points. There is
something said in it about collecting the revenue. I fully agree with the
President that there is no power or right in this government to
attempt to coerce a State back into the Union; but if the State does
secede, and thus becomes a foreign State, it seems to me equally clear
that you have no right to collect taxes in it. It is not pretended that
we can collect taxes at British or other foreign ports from commerce
going in there. If a State of the Union secedes, and becomes a foreign
State, it cannot be touched. The most offensive form of coercion
which could be adopted would be that of levying tribute. I have no
doubt that most of the governments of Europe would release their
dependencies from the claim on them for protection and for postal
facilities, &e., if they would just pay the government all the money it
might think proper to exact. I do not know, sir, whether I am given
to understand from the message that there is a purpose to continue
the collection of duties in any contingency; but if that be the policy,
I have no doubt some collision may occur."

http://books.google.com/books?id=ymUFAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA519

If the revenues are collected "peacefully", the onus is back on the South to fire the first shot. In that event, what is the attitude of North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Virginia, which had rejected immediate secession, but which also made it clear that they would secede if Lincoln "coerced" the states that had seceded? Would they consider the collection of the revenues as sufficient "coercion" to justify their secession? The quotation from Clingman would certainly indicate so. Yet, interestingly, at one point, Jefferson Davis himself had made a distinction:

""If South Carolina seceded first, Davis conceded, and if the federal
government should 'attempt to coerce' Lower South brothers 'back into the
Union, that act of usurpation folly, and wickedness would enlist every
true Southern man for her defense.' But instead, Davis predicted,
'federal ships would be sent to collect the duties on imports outside'
Charleston harbor..." https://books.google.com/books?id=AsjRsGPOXKMC&pg=PA388&lpg=PA388

Of course Davis had said that back in November, https://jeffersondavis.rice.edu/Content.aspx?id=85 and a lot had changed since then...
 
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