[GooB]

On December 26, 1860, six days after South Carolina declared its secession, U.S. Army Major Robert Anderson abandoned the indefensible Fort Moultrie and secretly relocated companies E and H (127 men, 13 of them musicians) of the 1st U.S. Artillery to Fort Sumter without orders from Washington, on his own initiative.

Now, maybe you aren't quite following the logic train here, so:

SC secedes. Fort Sumter becomes their property. Maj Anderson "siezes" it. ... ...

So to defend the argument I have to:

1) Show SC had the right of secession
2) Show SC owned the Fort thru that secession
3) Show the US committed acts of agression, thus causation for war.

All three are part of the discussion at hand, simply because:

4) Lack of #3 prevents escalation to war

However, I can't argue the merits of part 2, 3, or 4 unless part 1 is understood. Otherwise, we're just going to end back arguing the right of secession, which as you stated isn't the point of the OP.

Why is this so hard to understand?

[MB.]

SC secedes. Fort Sumter becomes their property.

This is clearly inaccurate. Fort Sumter was never the legal property of the CSA let alone South Carolina.

[GooB]

This is clearly inaccurate. Fort Sumter was never the legal property of the CSA let alone South Carolina.

This is the part I'm trying to get to in the debate. But, I cannot cleary prove or disprove the merits of that debate until we can come to a consensus on if SC even had the ability to secede. I don't want to start debating various documents and such if all I'm gonna hear back is "Couldn't secede, it's all moot". Thats a waste of my time, your time, and everyone elses. We're not talking politcal what if's, we're discussing historical 'dids', each leads to the next, there are no illogical leaps. I can't contend the Holocaust happened if you don't accept Hitler as a real person.

If I'm not going to be able to convince anyone that SC could secede, I'm surely not going to make any progress on the other aspects. Being as we're debating historical events, I thought it would be easy to either say -- Yes, I accept the proof you've provided. Or no, your wrong, here is why! Guess not.

[dgun]

But, I cannot cleary prove or disprove the merits of that debate until we can come to a consensus on if SC even had the ability to secede.

They didn't. If for no other reason, see the results of the following war: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War

The arguments for and against secession are old and tired. You're not going to get very much cooperation from myself (and I doubt from MB and Smilin' Dave either) on agreeing that South Carolina had a right to secede.

But again, for the sake of argument, let's suppose they did have the right to secede. Is it your ridiculous position that at that point every federal building and installation in South Carolina built from the US Treasury automatically became the property of South Carolina or the CSA?

It's too bad that Jeff Davis disagrees with you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Davis

before the bombardment of Fort Sumter, the commission was to travel to Washington, D.C., to offer to pay for any Federal property on Southern soil

He offered to pay for Federal Property, which means he recognized that although the CSA claimed to have seceded, federal property within CSA "boundaries" was still the property of the United States.

[Smilin' Dave]

Maj Anderson "siezes" it.

Sumter was occupied prior to Major Anderson's reinforcement of it. Surely nobody is stupid enough to have an fort completely unmanned? He seized nothing.

2) Show SC owned the Fort thru that secession

Okay, let's pretend that the south had the right to succeed for the moment.
- Why does it follow that federal property became state property by default
- Why did Jeff Davis' solution of negotiation (as raised by dgun) get made redundant in a hail of cannon fire?

I'm still unclear why you had to 'teach' us this in stages, rather than show your full line of logic from the start. But it seems your chain of logic isn't particularly strong anyway:

3) Show the US committed acts of agression, thus causation for war.

You need to show this seperately. As I pointed out, the fort was not seized, so there is no act of aggression. When a new entity is formed, having property that belongs to someone else 'inside' is a sticking point, but it isn't casus belli, its a cause for further negotiation.

Did Major Anderson abandon Fort Moultrie on a lark, or was he under threat/coercion?

I can't contend the Holocaust happened if you don't accept Hitler as a real person.

The Holocaust as an act can be proved with or without Hitler. Hitler didn't do it all with his own two hands. In actual fact academic discussions of the Holocaust often have to exclude Hitler to some extent, because of the lack of an empirical link between Hitler and the actions that took place (ie. no one has found a document with his signature on it). But thats another story.

What I'm getting at here is that proving the fort belonged to the succeeding state, or that the fort was seized or whatever, doesn't require that we first all agree to the right of succession. The topic is why it all turned to violence, not why it was right/wrong. Just as any attempt to shut down the debate with 'succession wasn't allowed' would be irrelevant to the actual topic.

If I'm not going to be able to convince anyone that SC could secede, I'm surely not going to make any progress on the other aspects.

Let us leave your short comings in debate out of this for a moment.