quote:
While there’s something to be said for the ceding of Sumter to the US, I think SC and the Confederacy recognized this, hence the offer to reimburse the US for it during peace negotiations. When SC ceded the forts to the US, the US was still an agent for the state’s defense. After SC seceded that relationship obviously changed and it seems that SC and the Confederacy acted in good faith during the negotiations. Despite this, SC and the Confederacy were apparently misled and means for their subjugation were already under way when they took the property back. SC and the Confederacy respected the US’s property right until their sovereignty was threatened I would say. And I would say it’s telling which side seemed to be acting in good faith and which wasn’t.

That’s the thing about Fort Sumter, as well as the other forts across the south. There was no way either side could allow the other to get their way in the matter.

From the US perspective:
By ceding the forts to the Confederacy, even if recompense was received, that would be extending official recognition to the Confederate States of America as a free and sovereign country. Thus, the Confederates would get what they want, namely independence.

From the Confederate perspective:
To allow the US to continue to garrison forts throughout the South would make the notion of an independent Confederacy a joke. No country would extend them official recognition under those circumstances. Thus, the goal of the Confederacy of being recognized as an independent country on the world stage was impossible so long as Federal forces occupied any forts in those areas now claimed by the Confederacy.

In other words, short of Lincoln giving the forts over to the Confederacy, which would signal to the world US recognition of the Confederacy, which Lincoln would never do because it would fundamentally undermine the US as a viable nation itself, there was going to be war. Lincoln was just smart enough to force the Confederate’s hand into firing the first shot.