You'll need to do the same for me because I'm really not seeing your logic on the rest of your response.
Will do what I can to clear it up.
Hmmm. You put that in all caps. It must be true. Except it isn't.
As I noted in the last post, there are two levels of reasons for sending the ships. Level one is the justification given to the public--the overt reason. That justification is that the garrison is running out of food because the south cut off their normal sources. If the south resumes normal shipments, the justification no longer exists, and the Feds risk the public perception that they are deliberately picking a fight, which they would be.
No more than they'd be picking a fight to send the garrison of Fort Whatchamacallit out on the plains supplies. The idea that the government has a right and responsibility to maintain the garrison is still intact, and the ships doing that is not illegitimate. The garrison still needs supplies (being able to buy them from Charleston gives them another source, but it doesn't magically eliminate the need to gain them), so supply ship missions still are relevant.
You put it in bold this time. I don't know if I can oppose the power of the bolded phrase.
Sarcasm does not go over well when pointing out that my writing is more incoherent than usual. Whether this is intentional or not is not the point, but it comes off as unnecessarily grating. Note, if anything in my phrasing is having the same effect, let me know.
Fortunately I don't need to because it's irrelevant. I'm not a neoconfederate, and I honestly believe that Lincoln did have the legal right to resupply that garrison.
However, what matters isn't whether or not you or I feel that Lincoln had the right to send ships in. It's how sending those ships in would play in the north and especially in the border states. I know there are people on this board that think the north was solidly for war and nothing Lincoln could do would affect that because the northern press would spin it as southern aggression. I've also read enough history of the era to know that is not historically true.
Sending those ships would only play as an aggressive act if those ships were doing anything more than sending in supplies.
]
While there were people in both the north and south who were not going to be budged from their position, there were also a considerable number who could be swayed by perceptions of 'who started it'. That's the key to the situation. I suspect that Lincoln was a smart enough politician that if the south had resumed food shipments as a 'peace gesture' he would have backed off temporarily until he found a way of getting the south to fire the first shot that didn't make it quite as obvious that he was doing so.
And the side starting it is the one raising a stink over the fort. How dare the Federals supply it. It is no more outrageous for Lincoln to send supply ships to Fort Sumter than for Britain to send supply ships to Gibraltar. How dare the US try to supply its soldiers overseas (which, assuming the Confederacy is considered a separate country, Fort Sumter has become)
Sort of true. Though the south could and would spin federal ships demanding to enter a major southern harbor when their stated mission had gone away as an unnecessary provocation, which from an objective standpoint it would be.
No, it wouldn't be. The only standpoint it would be a provocation is that of those who think that the Federal ships have no right to enter.
The South can spin it anyway it likes, but it would not be objectively any sort of provocation - except to those who think Lincoln not abandoning the fort is itself provocation (whether said as opposition to Lincoln's policy or to the Union).
Looking back at the post, I suspect I come across as a bit of smart-@ss. That's not quite what I'm going for. I'm mildly amused at the vehemence of some of the opinions on this board on issues that were settled nearly 150 years ago. The south lost. It was accepted back as an equal part of the United States. Everybody involved in the fighting or the decision-making is long since dead, as are, for the most part, their children and grandchildren. It's over. It's history, with enough time between the events and now that there is no logical reason to get vehement about it.
Speaking for myself with no attempt whatsoever to speak for others, I get vehement when dealing with arguments in the form of "the South was right".
And the South is dead wrong in claiming it has any right to demand anything in regards to Fort Sumter.
Could a "we'll agree to let the garrison buy supplies if you don't send any ships to the fort" offer be made? Yes. Would there be people who would see that as a reasonable exchange? Yes. Would that mean that sending such ships is Lincoln attempting to start conflict? No.
It would mean Lincoln refuses to accept the US being dictated to in regards to what it can do to hold and maintain its territory.
One unfinished, under garrisoned, underequiped fort is not much of a threat to Charleston except to the extent those who find any Union soldiers south of some line between the Mason-Dixon and the Carolina border see it as a threat. Even as a fully finished and equipped and manned fort, it is as right for the US to occupy it as for Britain to occupy Gibraltar.
South Carolina is no more threatened by it than Spain is by that outpost of British territory so long as the two are at peace, and if there's war it will - based on developments so far - be because someone decided to remove that disputed spot from what they see as theirs. Same as OTL.
That's the problem. SC is whining that because the US dares occupy the site that its being provocative. That doesn't have much of a leg to stand on.