Of course South Carolina ceded the land to the Federal Government as a member of that federation. That is how you get a federal fort to defend your harbor, and investment in your state. However, assuming the validity of secession as a course of action, which was widely believed as a legitimate political process in 1861, once South Carolina left that federation, there is no need for the Federal government to occupy a fort defending a harbor their government no longer owns. Unless, of course, you have no intention of honoring that state’s declaration of secession.
I used the example of British frontier forts after the American Revolution previously. The British refusing to relinquish those forts would have rightly been viewed as a hostile act; what need would the British have of forts in American territory if not to block westward expansion and/or aid the Indians against the new country? The British were in fact reluctant to leave several forts, and the issue had to be resolved in yet another treaty.
But back to South Carolina ceding land to the federal government. They offered to buy it back. Today, military posts are also ceded by the state in which they reside. When a post needs to expand, they buy more land from the state and this becomes federal property. If a post falls victim to base realignment, the land is sold back to the state. Just because something became federal property once does not mean it must be and will be federal property for perpetuity.
Lincoln’s administration (including his secretary of state prior to his inauguration) stalled for 6 months on giving any answer to South Carolina’s offer, making claims that they were willing to negotiate on the one hand, while publicly declaring that no state could leave the union on the other. Meanwhile, the government sent a “relief expedition” to the fort; 1 resupply ship and a fleet of armed ships to provoke South Carolina into firing on the fort before they could be “taken from two sides” between the fleet and the fort. On top of this, Lincoln actually signed the order to initiate a blockade against all Southern ports before South Carolina ever fired on Fort Sumter. The date of this order was, in fact, listed by the Supreme Court after the Confederacy’s surrender as the official start of the war. He wanted a war, and so he provoked one. He plainly stated this in his correspondence.
Here are Lincoln’s advisors on the situation:
Secretary of State William Seward:
Suppose the expedition successful, we have then a garrison in Ft. Sumter that can defy assault for six months. What is it to do then? Is it to make war by opening its batteries and attempting to demolish the defenses of Charleston? ……I would not initiate war to regain a useless and unnecessary position on the soil of the seceding States.
Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles:
By sending, or attempting to send provisions into Sumter, will not war be precipitated? It may be impossible to escape it under any course of policy that may be pursued, but I am not prepared to advise a course that would provoke hostilities.
Major Anderson, garrisoning the fort:
It would be a provocative act to merely make the attempt.
After the fact:
April 17, 1861, The
New York Evening Day-Book:
We have no doubt, and all the circumstances prove, that it was a cunningly devised scheme, contrived with all due attention to scenic display and intended to arouse, and, if possible, exasperate the northern people against the South…. We venture to say a more gigantic conspiracy against the principles of human liberty and freedom has never been concocted. Who but a fiend could have thought of sacrificing the gallant Major Anderson and his little band in order to carry out a political game? Yet there he was compelled to stand for thirty-six hours amid a torrent of fire and shell, while the fleet sent to assist him, coolly looked at his flag of distress and moved not to his assistance! Why did they not? Perhaps the archives in Washington will yet tell the tale of this strange proceeding…. Pause then, and consider before you endorse these mad men who are now, under pretense of preserving the Union, doing the very thing that must forever divide it.
We can debate just how much slavery was a motivating factor in either the secession or the war, but let us not pretend that the firing on Fort Sumter was an unprovoked act of aggression in the middle of a full-court-press by the federal government to find a peaceful solution to the crisis.