CShine

The South is fully to blame for starting the Civil War, period.

The island upon which Ft. Sumter rests was never, ever part of the state of South Carolina. It is a man-made island which was created by the authority of Congress in the 1820's for the expressed purpose of building the fort. It was ALWAYS federal government property from the beginning and South Carolina never had any credible claim to it.

The South legitimately seceded from the Union and formed their own nation. President Jefferson Davis then ordered General P.G.T. Beauregard to demand the surrender of Ft. Sumter and to seize it by force if that demand was refused. This constitutes an act of war under any definition of the term. As a legitimate nation which had seceded from the Union, the South had NO RIGHT to demand Northern territory nor to seize it. Furthermore, the North could not possibly ignore a hostile nation on its border which had deliberately attacked it, seized a federal base, and was then proceeding to begin a massive military buildup. To do nothing in the face of a direct attack from a hostile and growing power would've been stupidity in the extreme.

The Confederacy would've had legitimate grounds to demand recognition and respect from the North had it simply chosen not to attack Ft. Sumter. As said before, that attack constituted an act of war under any definition of the term ever invented. In so doing, they lost any hope of saying that they had peaceful intentions. The Confederacy brought the Civil War upon itself. No nation with an ounce of sanity would allow one of its military installations to be seized by a neighbor without responding with its own military. To do otherwise would have been practically asking the Confederacy to attack again. The Confederates should've kept their fingers off the trigger and they would've had a leg to stand on. When they fired the first shot they brought the war down upon their own heads.