Originally Posted by CShine

Quite the contrary, it's the ONLY thing that has any meaning regarding who had a right to it. If South Carolina had ANY legitimate grounds to claim that they could secede then they could ONLY claim to take the lands within its borders. They did not have any claim to territory that had always lain outside their borders, yet they presumed to do just that. They had no more right to Ft. Sumter than they did to Boston harbor. The fact that the fort was strategically significant to the operation of the harbor did NOT confer to them the right to shoot at it, much less seize it. Doing so was AN ACT OF WAR.