 If you've ever read Candide by Voltaire, one of the most interesting stories I think is the one of the old woman who was partially eaten by Turkish soldiers. This is in chapter 12 for reference. The 20 soldiers sworn oath to never surrender the fort they were garrisoning, but they were being starved out. Violating their oath would be a great dishonor, so instead they turned to cannibalism. Voltaire obviously is offering commentary on the absurd notion of honor that these soldiers were adhering to as most sane people would consider it far less honorable to become a cannibal than to violate an oath. Obviously, Robert Anderson and his men at Fort Sumter did not resort to cannibalism, and Voltaire was offering a deliberately absurd example of devotion to honor to make his point. But the situation that Robert Anderson and his men were facing at Fort Sumter was not unlike the Turkish soldiers in their own fort in Candide. They were cut off from supplies, and Anderson's superiors were wasting all of their time deliberating as to what should be done. He was given no orders, knowing only that he was expected to hold the fort until otherwise instructed. The rations for the men had to be cut in half, and eventually into quarter rations. When Lincoln took office, nearly his entire cabinet wanted him to evacuate the fort, only two people dissenting. But while Lincoln deliberated, Anderson and his men starved. It was only Anderson's devotion to his oath as an officer in the United States military that caused him to maintain his position, refusing to cede the fort to the Confederacy without explicit permission from Washington. Anderson did not want war with the South. He was perfectly willing to cede the fort. He just wasn't willing to violate orders. That would be dishonorable. On January 20th, Governor Pickens would send food to the garrison at Sumter. South Carolina had resolved to prevent reinforcements, but they did not object to the garrison and their families being fed. Pickens sent over 200 pounds of beef, as well as potatoes, turnips, and other items. The hungry soldier started to plan a feast, but when Robert Anderson heard about the delivery, he ordered it all to be returned. He would not accept food from his enemy. He would not let Governor Pickens act as the generous benefactor to his men. It would be better to go hungry and to let the women and children go hungry than to accept the dishonor of eating enemy food. When fuel was running low to keep the men warm, some of the soldiers advocated tearing out some of the wooden walls and flooring, or the unused gun carriages. Anderson refused to do so. He couldn't imagine destroying government property. The men, their wives, and their children would suffer the winter cold instead, sparingly using only the wood that could be salvaged from the half-dozen temporary shacks that had been built for the laborers when constructing the fort. By March these were all gone. Governor to suffer the cold and let the women and children suffer the cold, then dishonorably destroy the property of a government that refused to address a difficult situation. When a slave paddled a canoe up to Fort Sumter in March and told an officer that he had run away from his master after being beaten nearly to death, and he asked for sanctuary, he was turned away. The law of the United States would not allow it. The Fugitive Slave Act was still on the books, and the Union government refused to recognize the legitimacy of secession. It would be dishonorable to violate the laws of the government, and aiding a runaway slave was a crime and a violation of duty. Both President Buchanan and President Lincoln essentially used Robert Anderson and his men as pawns in their political machinations. They did not want to give up the fort. They did not want to be seen as the people who started a war. They did not want to be the presidents whose legacy was the severing of the Union. And while they delayed, Anderson and his men went hungry, because violating the orders of such men, men worried about political implications more than the well-being of their soldiers. Violating the orders of these men would be a dishonorable violation of duty. I'm Chris Calton, and this is the Mises Institute Podcast Historical Controversies. This episode is going to pick up where the episode on South Carolina left off. In between these episodes, we've seen what Lincoln was up to before taking the presidency, and what the Confederacy was up to in forming a new government. By the end of this story, Lincoln would officially be in office, and the Confederate government would formally be in place, so the diplomatic standoff would transfer from President Buchanan and South Carolina Governor Francis Pickens to Union President Lincoln and Confederate President Jefferson Davis. When Charleston fired on Cornelius Vanderbilt's ship, The Star of the West, while the Army was leasing it to send 200 troops to Fort Sumter, Georgia's Senator Robert Toomes was in Washington, D.C. Now you may remember from the last episode that Toomes was a heavy drinker and had a habit of making a bit of a spectacle of himself at dinner parties. The timeline in these last few episodes has a lot of overlapping events, so when The Star of the West was fired on, Georgia was still more than a week away from secession, where Robert Toomes had not yet ruined his shot at the Confederate presidency with his drunken antics, but the behavior that would do so was on full display at Washington on the night of January 9th. Toomes was a fireeater, and he was ready for Georgia to join the succeeding states. So at a dinner party, he was drunk, as usual, and informed the people there that South Carolina's militia had not only fired on The Star of the West, but they had sunk it completely. And Toomes was very sorry that the people who had sent the ship were not on board at the time. General Winfield Scott, the reigning military officer in the country, and a Virginian who did not want war with the South, was understandably offended by Toomes's comments. Scott was one of the people Toomes was referring to, which was a secret to nobody. Robert Toomes was not making it easy for Northern Unionists to seek peace with the succeeding states. Scott and Toomes got into an argument over Toomes's comment until Scott took to his feet and started toward Toomes, forcing other party guests to separate the pair before a fight broke out. The situation was no less tense in South Carolina. The day that The Star of the West was fired on was the same day that Mississippi seceded, but the other five states still had yet to join them. Many people thought that The Star of the West incident was going to be the catalyst for war that the bombardment of Fort Sumter was actually destined to be. In Charleston, citizens rushed out to witness the hostilities. It was exciting. Many brought with them opera glasses or spy glasses to get a better look at the goings on across the harbor. When The Star of the West turned to retreat, Charlestonians could only see that the ship was getting smaller. It looked like it could be sinking from their vantage point. The Charleston Mercury, the local fire-eating newspaper owned by Robert Barnwell Ret Jr., said that the firing on the ship, quote, has wiped out a half-century of scorn and outrage, end quote. The prevailing assumption was that this would force Buchanan's hand and start a war that would show the North to be the aggressors. They expected more ships to be sent to Sumter, and Robert Anderson would be forced to use his artillery, which they knew would be seen as an act of war, even by many Northern Unionists. Had this been the case, secession would have hastened. The border states would have joined, and the South would have started the war with a considerable advantage in public sentiment. At two in the afternoon, Governor Pickens sent word to Anderson. Pickens called Anderson's secret move to Fort Sumter, quote, the first act of positive hostility, end quote. Further, Pickens had already warned President Buchanan that any attempt to send reinforcements to the garrison would be seen as an act of hostility. Pickens also said that his decision to play ships between Fort's Moultrie and Sumter was done to prevent bloodshed, and the decision to fire on the star was on Pickens's order to continue firing on any ship that did not stop after a warning shot was delivered, which was a true account of the event. Anderson received Pickens's message, but he didn't know what he was supposed to do in this situation. He had received no orders from Washington and had no way of sending orders to retreat to the star. So this was also a true account. Anderson was stuck between a rock and a hard place, trying to follow orders, but his higher ups were giving him nothing to act on. To Anderson, it seemed very plausible that Buchanan and Pickens had some sort of understanding that Buchanan violated, but Anderson had no way of knowing if that was true. His superiors had left him completely in the dark about everything. But Pickens was also under pressure and criticism. Some South Carolinians, such as Senator William Bull, believed Pickens had missed his window of opportunity to seize Fort Sumter. Pickens, for all his bombast, was rationally waiting to see how negotiations with President Buchanan might turn out, and this was all calculated into Anderson's decision for when to make his move on Sumter. It's hard not to play Monday morning quarterback when talking about military history, but for my part, it does seem like both Governor Pickens and Robert Anderson were acting reasonably in their given circumstances. But President Buchanan was putting both men in a difficult position with his indecision and unwillingness to communicate effectively with either party. So Pickens sent two members of his council to parlay with Robert Anderson. They were effectively sent to present Anderson with an ultimatum. Their instructions were to demand that Anderson peacefully surrender Fort Sumter, and their implication was that failure to do so would result in an assault on the fort. They delivered this message on January 11th, two days after the firing on the star. And during those two days, Anderson had witnessed a flurry of activity from Charlestonians around the harbor. Troops had taken up on Sullivan's Island. Men had worked to fortify their position. They drug five hulks to the mouth of the harbor. A hulk, by the way, usually refers to either an incomplete ship or an old ship that had been stripped of anything useful. Basically, these are useless, but buoyant ships. Anderson saw the men sink four of them by filling them with granite, and the fifth anchored nearby ready to be sunk in a moment's notice, this blocking access to the harbor. With all this activity from Anderson's perspective, Pickens probably wasn't making an idle threat. Anderson consulted with his officers and discussed the situation with Pickens's emissaries. At this point, a total of four southern states had now seceded. Anderson wanted to avoid war, and he said as much, so he suggested that the emissaries get permission from Pickens to take their ultimatum to Washington and present it to President Buchanan. Pickens agreed and sent his attorney general, Isaac Hain, to carry the message to Washington. Anderson sent his adjudant, Lieutenant Hall, to accompany him. Buchanan received the message, and he didn't know what to do. He was worried about his image in the press. Unionist newspapers would crucify him if he gave up the fort, but anti-war and southern sympathizing newspapers would do the same if he continued to try to reinforce the garrison. The mayor of New York City was now calling for secession, and business leaders were fretting about the economy. Rumors were circulating throughout the country about possible attacks on Washington and assassination attempts on Lincoln. Days earlier, artillerists in Vicksburg, Mississippi opened fire on a ship coming down the Mississippi River. Even in states that had yet to secede, secessionist militia units were seizing federal forts, armories, ships, and hospitals. Most of these properties were empty, and nobody was killed, but it didn't look good for Buchanan. Meanwhile, northern patriots were in an uproar over South Carolina's decision to fire on a ship carrying the flag of the United States. Northerners who previously wanted peace were now ready to take up arms against the south, not all of them obviously, but some of them that previously wanted peace had changed their mind with this act. Then there was the matter in Pensacola, Florida. The operation of Fort Pickens began the same year as Fort Sumter, 1829, but it was nearly twice the size of Sumter. But it was empty at the beginning of 1861. Not far away was another fort, Barancus, which held a garrison of 47 men of the 1st Artillery Regiment's Company G, led by Lieutenant Adam Slimmer. Knowing that Alabama and Florida were poised to secede, Slimmer started to consider moving his forces to Fort Pickens, just as Anderson had done with Fort Sumter. Just a day before the incident with the Star of the West on January 8th, a sentry at Fort Barancus heard a group of about 20 men coming toward them. He yelled out to them to stop, but they continued moving forward. Slimmer's sentry fired a shot, another possible contender for the technical first shot of the Civil War, since this took place hours before the firing on the Star of the West. A few hours later, Slimmer received a message from Winfield Scott that had been sent a few days earlier. The orders were for Slimmer to do everything in his power to keep the forts. The following day, on January 9th, Slimmer and his men moved to Fort Pickens, and two days after that, a group of Southerners took down the United States flag from the naval yard near Fort Barancus. This meant that Buchanan and later Lincoln had to deal with both Fort Pickens and Fort Sumter. Fort Pickens was also a better position to receive reinforcements than Sumter, and 100 men were sent to beef up the garrison at Pickens. But just before they landed, Buchanan sent word to do nothing except hold the fort from attackers. I think this is important. When Lincoln sent reinforcements to Fort Sumter, he would tell the Confederate leaders that the men on the ship would not be unloaded at the fort unless the ship was fired on. But there were reasons to not believe him, and this was one of them. The act of reinforcing a fort just off the coast of a seceded state was seen as highly provocative. Buchanan told three of his military advisors to figure out a way to get reinforcements to Fort Sumter, but he didn't want them to be sent just yet. He just wanted to be ready to send them if and when the time came. These orders were already given before Buchanan received the ultimatum from Governor Pickens. In the note, it is worth mentioning that Governor Pickens offered to pay for the fort. He laid for a week before sending a note rejecting the offer for paid seating of Fort Sumter. In Texas, the federal properties were dealt with far more decisively. Brigadier General David Emanuel Twiggs, a commander of the Department of Texas, one of the seven military districts in the country, gave no resistance to the state. He held authority over a whopping 2,328 men, including Robert E. Lee and Robert Anderson's brother Charles Anderson. But in late January, Texas's secession seemed inevitable, and Twiggs asked for orders from Washington. When none came, he told one of his officers, quote, if an old woman with a broomstick should come with full authority from the state of Texas to demand the public property, I would give it up to her. End quote. Two days later, a mob showed up in San Antonio, where Twiggs was headquartered, and they demanded the surrender of his entire considerable command. Twiggs didn't hesitate. He sent orders to all 19 of his posts to turn over every federal property to the state of Texas. To people throughout the country, this was a remarkable decision. A single fort, like Sumter or Pickens, paled in comparison to the properties under the command of Brigadier General Twiggs. When word of this reached the garrison at Sumter, the men were disgusted. Or Talbot referred to it as Twiggs Treason in a letter to his sister. Charles Anderson also referred to the Actus Treason in a letter to his brother, Robert Anderson. Now, think back to my introductory anecdote, where I was comparing the situation at Sumter to the story in Candide about the Turkish soldiers who were so dedicated to their honor that they resorted to cannibalism rather than abandon their post. Many people throughout the country saw Twiggs's action as extremely dishonorable, and that was the word they used. But Twiggs had more than 2,000 men to worry about, and while Robert Anderson was letting the men, women, and children under him go cold and hungry while he awaited orders from an indecisive Washington, Twiggs ensured the safety of everybody for whom he was responsible. When Robert Anderson's wife learned about Twiggs's surrender, she wrote to her husband saying, quote, I felt my cheek burn with indignation. I swear, my dear husband, though your life is more precious to me than my own, I would rather know that you were dead, yes, dead, than have to see you and call you husband after you having proved yourself such a traitor, such a villain, end quote. I know this is commentary and not history, but I think this aside is worth offering because most people simply don't think about these things when reflecting on the Civil War or any war for that matter. If you strip away all the notion of duty to government or military and you only consider the officers and the men, women, and children they were responsible for, it seems patently absurd to call Twiggs's surrender dishonorable while Robert Anderson's decision to let the infant children of some of his men go cold and hungry rather than abandon his post honorable. Twiggs asked for orders from an indecisive president and when none came, he made a decision that kept his men safe and he was crucified for it in the north. But again, this is just my commentary and it has no bearing on the historical facts of the situation, so you are free to come to your own judgments on the matter. By the end of January, Governor Pickens was preparing the militia at Fort Moultrie. He declared martial law in Sullivan's Island and the commander of the fort, Colonel Ripley, had no patience for the undisciplined volunteers. And the young men making up the militia at Moultrie certainly needed some discipline. One young volunteer, barely 18 years old, shot himself in the thigh while he was playing with his pistol. Only days after that, a 19-year-old volunteer named Clark Allen was killed when he and another volunteer were racing carelessly in the opposite direction coming in and out of the barracks. The other young man was coming up the stairs with his musket, which had a bayonet fixed on the end, and Allen burst through the door at the top of the staircase, only to take the bayonet through the eye, piercing his brain and killing him on the spot. In March, some of the soldiers were practicing with the artillery, when one group somehow decided to practice with a gun that had a cannonball loaded in it. The cannonball landed just short of Fort Sumter, and the garrison thought it meant the commencement of an attack, immediately closing the gate to the fort and readying their own guns to return fire. Even by seeing the reactions of the soldiers at Moultrie, that Anderson and his men realized that the cannon fire was accidental. South Carolina also constructed an interesting military innovation, the floating battery. This was basically an armored warship, which was an idea that had been around for some years, but this was the first time anybody had ever actually tried to put one into action. This early design had three primary issues. Its weight might make it immovable. The recoil from its many guns might cause the ship to break apart, and when under fire, the ship would make the men manning it vulnerable. One observer of the ship referred to it as, quote, a slaughter pin. But nonetheless, this was an important step in naval innovation, and by 1862, armored warships were a famous component of both navies. In early February, Pickens ordered preparations for an attack on Fort Sumter, but Jefferson Davis, not yet the Confederate president, stepped in to advise him against the attack, and Pickens' acquiesced, deferring to Davis's military expertise. Only a few days later, the Confederate government eventually came into existence, and Governor Pickens was no longer solely responsible for the decision regarding the fort. Pierre Beauregard arrived in Montgomery, the capital of the Confederacy, on February 26. By this time, Jefferson Davis was officially the president. On February 27, while strolling the streets of Montgomery, people came up to congratulate Beauregard for his recent appointment as the first Brigadier General in the Confederate Army. This was the first Beauregard had heard of the appointment. His initial orders were to take command at Charleston. Pierre Beauregard's favorite teacher at West Point had been his professor of artillery, Robert Anderson. The men were close, and they sometimes dined together in the evening. After graduating, Beauregard stayed on at West Point as Anderson's assistant instructor. During the Mexican War, the men served together under Winfield Scott. Both men were admired for their courage and their ability as artillery commanders. Now, they would face each other at Fort Sumter. Anderson was deeply affected by Beauregard's presence in Charleston. He wrote Washington, telling them of Beauregard's great skill as an artillery officer, and he ended the letter saying, quote, God grant that our country may be saved from the horrors of a fratricidal war, end quote. This last line indicates how Anderson felt about Beauregard. They were not just friends, they were brothers. Beauregard wrote to his superiors in Montgomery with similar praise for Anderson, who he called, quote, a most gallant officer. He even sent Anderson and his officers cases of brandy and boxes of cigars only to have Anderson return them, just as he had done with the food sent by Governor Pickens weeks earlier. Anderson returned them with a note saying that they must have been sent by mistake against Beauregard's orders. Even before taking office, Abraham Lincoln had resolved to keep Fort Sumter, and if it should be surrendered before his inauguration, he said that he planned to seize it back. This was all promised in private letters, so his determination on the matter was not public knowledge, but it's something we're aware of historically. In his inaugural address, Lincoln denied the legitimacy of secession and said that he was responsible for the maintenance of all federal properties, which clearly meant Fort's Sumter and Pickens. It was only on the advice of William Seward that Lincoln softened his address to avoid explicitly hostile declarations. Because Lincoln redrafted his inaugural address, Lincoln's stance on war was not clear. But to the people in Charleston, his statement about maintaining federal property could only mean one thing. Other people were less sure, and this is one of the key points about Lincoln that should be understood regardless of whether or not you admire the man. He was deliberately ambiguous. One of the reasons he is so hotly debated today by people who revere him or despise him, is because he is an enigma, and this is not an accident. His language was drafted for calculated ambiguity, and this was the case during his inaugural address. That Fort Sumter, Wiley Crawford wrote in his diary, Does it mean peace or war? He wasn't sure what to make of the president's speech, and neither were many other northerners. March 5th was Lincoln's first full day as president, and the situation off the coast of Charleston was the most immediate issue to deal with. Lincoln was given a report from Robert Anderson indicating that they could not hold out much longer in the fort with their current supply of food. Winfield Scott read the report and wrote Lincoln a note saying, I now see no alternative but a surrender. Buchanan had kicked the can down the road until the problem of Fort Sumter would be handed to Lincoln. On March 9th, Lincoln held his first cabinet meeting. It seems likely that Lincoln informed his cabinet that Sumter would have to be evacuated, this being evidenced from the diary of Lincoln's attorney general, Edward Bates, who wrote, I was astonished to be informed that Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor must be evacuated. Lincoln also sent a letter to Winfield Scott asking how long he believed that the garrison could hold out, whether the government could send the supplies before them, and if not, could they do so with a stronger military? Scott answered, it was impossible to give a precise state for when Anderson would be starved out, but it was definitely less than seven weeks. The army was not strong enough to break through to Sumter, but it might be able to do so with a large fleet and 25,000 soldiers, but this could only be done through an act of Congress, and they were not in session yet, and the soldiers would need a minimum of six months training. In other words, Lincoln's idea was simply not possible. Other military leaders agreed with Scott's analysis, but Lincoln, who had no expertise on military matters, was not convinced. On March 15th, he held another cabinet meeting and pulled his entire cabinet about what should be done. A handful of them said that it might be possible to send provisions to the Fort Sumter, but it certainly wouldn't be wise to try. Lincoln's Secretary of War, Simon Cameron, was completely opposed to any attempt to send supplies. The only supporters of an attempt to supply Sumter were Sam and Chase, the Treasury Secretary, and Lincoln's postmaster general, Montgomery Blair, who believed that not sending provisions would lead to war. Now this is all worth thinking about when judging Lincoln and his mindset come April. Every single one of his military advisors believed that it was impossible to resupply the Fort. This position was held by Winfield Scott, the leading military general in the entire country, General Joseph Totten, who was the army's most reputable expert on military engineering and had helped design Fort Sumter, and by Secretary of War Cameron. The only people who thought differently were two people who were hardly qualified to offer an opinion, the Secretary of the Treasury and the postmaster general. Lincoln seemed to have already made his decision and was simply looking for anybody who might agree with him to justify his actions. At least that's how I see it, but we don't have access to his actual thought process on the matter, so this is just inference. So Lincoln sent two emissaries to Charleston to survey the situation, further delaying any decision. Two weeks into office, and Anderson was still awaiting orders, having heard nothing from his new commander in chief, and his men were already dealing with half-rations. I really think all of this context is worth keeping in mind when thinking about Fort Sumter. William Seward was among the cabinet members who supported withdrawal from the Fort. He was actually corresponding with the Confederate leaders to offer assurances that the garrison at Sumter would be withdrawn. In Seward's mind, he believed that he would be able to convince the President that this was the right course of action, which maybe was premature, but wasn't unreasonable considering that every military expert was giving Lincoln this advice. Any other decision seemed absurd. But on the other hand, Seward was conveying this information as if he was speaking on behalf of the President, and this is how the Confederate leaders received it. Why shouldn't they? William Seward was Lincoln's secretary of state. Communicating with foreign leaders was precisely William Seward's job, and his position was to speak on behalf of the President. This is all very key in understanding the Confederate decision to fire on Fort Sumter when Lincoln sent word that he was sending provisions to the Fort, but promising not to unload any men if the ship was allowed safe passage. Why should Lincoln be trusted when he had already broken promises conveyed on his behalf by the very cabinet member whose job it was to do so? So Seward was really overreaching when he was giving his assurances to the Confederacy, but they had no reason to believe that Seward was not speaking on Lincoln's behalf. By the end of March, the garrison at Maltry still had no word from Washington. Wiley Crawford wrote in his diary on March 29th, quote, no order yet for our withdrawal. We cannot understand why we are being neglected, end quote. But by this time, Lincoln had already come to his decision despite all the advice to the contrary by every military leader he spoke to. We don't know why Lincoln decided to take action, but it seems that it was probably more political than anything. Several Republican governors were in DC at the time, and the party was certainly more ready to take military action than non-Republicans in the North, especially the more radical Republicans. It didn't help that Francis Blair, father of Montgomery Blair, had been spreading rumors about the withdrawal, which upset the armchair hawks in the city. Blair, if you remember, from some previous episodes, had been an unofficial advisor to Andrew Jackson. And Jackson was ready to take military action against South Carolina in the 1830s during the nullification crisis. But on March 28th, General Scott sent yet another memo to the president, advising him to withdraw the garrison at Fort Pickens in Pensacola so as to solidify support from the border states. Lincoln was actually outraged by this advice. He thought that Scott was advising him on political matters rather than just military matters, and this meant that maybe all of Scott's advice had been political advice. Winfield Scott, after all, was a Virginian. So Lincoln ignored all of his military advisors and decided to take action. We don't know exactly why, and the things I just mentioned are just historical speculation, things that give plausible explanations, but no records can confirm any of them. Lincoln gave orders to start the process of sending relief to Major Anderson. I want to pause here and talk about some of the arguments historians have made about Lincoln's decision to supply Fort Sumter. In 1937, historian Charles Ramsdell in an article titled Lincoln and Fort Sumter claimed that Lincoln maneuvered the Confederacy into quote, firing the first shot in order that they, rather than he, should take the blame of beginning the bloodshed, end quote. This position was also espoused by J.S. Tilley in the book, Lincoln Takes Command. This position has been popular among many critics of Lincoln. This is, at the very least, plausible, and Confederate leaders, including Jefferson Davis, were themselves trying to figure out how to make sure that the Union fired the first shots. Regardless of whether or not such actions are morally justifiable, there is strategic sense in it, especially if you believe war to be inevitable. Some historians take the entirely opposite position. This can be found argued by David Potter in the article, Why the Republicans Rejected Both Compromise and Secession, James Randall in his book, Lincoln, the Liberal Statesman and by George Harmon Knowles in his book, The Crisis of the Union, 1860 to 1861. They offer the most generous interpretation of Lincoln's actions. Lincoln, they claim, fully expected the resupply to be peacefully executed, but this would put the choice between war and peace in the hands of the Confederacy. In 1963, historian Richard Currant combined these two perspectives in his book, Lincoln and the First Shot. Kenneth Stamp, one of the more prolific scholars of the Civil War, has since adopted this interpretation as well. They argue that Lincoln was making a calculated decision, weighing the risk. He knew that an attack by the Confederacy was a possibility and he took that possibility into consideration. This seems to be the soberest interpretation. It avoids the ridiculous naivety Lincoln would have to have had possessed to think that resupply would not receive an aggressive response, but it also avoids the caricature of Lincoln as a foaming at the mouth warmonger whose primary goal was to start a war. If you've read James McPherson's book, The Battle Cry of Freedom, which I really do think is fantastic overall, despite his ignorance of economics, he falls prey to problematic thinking on this matter. In the 78th footnote of chapter eight, he offers the various perspectives on this debate. He points to three main positions among historians, basically the ones I've already mentioned, but I'm going to put it the way that he wrote it and I'm going to quote generously from the footnote here. McPherson writes, one, Lincoln knew that he could save his administration and party only by war, so he deliberately manipulated the Confederacy into firing the first shot so that he could have his war at maximum political advantage. Two, Lincoln wanted to preserve the status quo to give the policy of voluntary reconstruction a new lease on life, but he feared that giving up Sumter would discredit the government and bolster the Confederacy in the eyes of the world. Hoping to preserve peace, but willing to risk war, he devised the resupply scheme in such a way as to give Confederates the choice of peace or war. Or three, Lincoln would have been happy to preserve the peace but probably expected the Confederates to open fire, either way, he won. So this is McPherson's explanation of these three views, but McPherson takes a position. He says, quote, the differences between interpretations two and three are subtle and hinge on efforts to read Lincoln's mind to guess what he wanted or expected the Confederates to do, although he never said explicitly what he expected them to do, Lincoln had become rather disillusioned with the prospects for voluntary reconstruction and he had plenty of reason to believe that the Confederates would open fire on a peaceful resupply effort. Therefore, interpretation three seems most plausible. End quote. This is a reasonable analysis by McPherson, but in his narrative, in the body of the book, he describes it as Lincoln challenging Davis, shall it be peace or war? And Davis effectively deciding war. So in his footnote, he says interpretation three, the synthesis is most plausible, but in his narrative, he tacitly seems to adopt the more generous second interpretation. So I point this out just to highlight how contentious this issue is in Civil War histories. We don't know what Lincoln was actually thinking. We are offering educated guesses based on Lincoln's actions and the incentives that we can identify from the context. But I take the most issue with the second interpretation, the one that is most generous to Lincoln. Like McPherson in his narrative, they present to Lincoln's decision as if it was him letting the Confederacy decide between peace and war. But this is simply disingenuous and I think it's rooted in anti-succession bias. These historians take war as the inevitable outcome of secession and if you remember from my introductory episode for this season, that is fallacious and mechanistic thinking. It is not meaningless to say that Lincoln could have let the South secede in peace. Many historians ignore that possibility, I think, because Lincoln refused to consider that possibility. In other words, it only matters when passing moral judgment on the historical decisions, which is a matter of commentary rather than history proper. But their own value judgments are bleeding in anyway when they ignore this possibility by presenting Lincoln as using his resupply scheme to force the Confederacy to make the decision between war and peace. What they're really saying is that Lincoln let them decide between specifically peaceful reunion versus violent separation. That was the decision Lincoln was thrusting on the Confederacy by refusing to consider the possibility of peaceful secession. And that isn't just a moral judgment. It's a matter of legitimate historical analysis because even if you agree that war was justified, this is still the historical context of Lincoln's decision. It was not peace or war, like they describe, it was peace on Lincoln's terms or war. And that is an incredibly important caveat. From the Southern perspective, seeking peace on the terms of what they now consider to be a foreign government was essentially allowing the Union to act as the hegemon of the Confederate States. In no other context would that not be considered an act of war. So that doesn't mean you can't defend Lincoln. You can. Some people believe that war is justified by secession and some people believe that the South had no legitimate claim to independence because their secession was motivated by slavery. Those are all positions that can be held without denying the legitimate historical context of Lincoln's decision to resupply Fort Sumter. It's very difficult to divorce personal value judgments from this history because we naturally attach certain values to various things like independence and war. But independence and war are the objective context of Lincoln's decision and are still historical facts regardless of our natural moral inclinations. And that has to be at the front of our minds during these kinds of analyses, I think. For my part, I think Lincoln is best understood as holding three conflicting preferences. If you're familiar with Austrian value scale analysis with ordinal value rankings, I think that concept can be useful here. Lincoln valued various things, but he had to decide which values outranked others because they were in tension with each other. Lincoln was anti-slavery, but he was only moderately so. It was a low priority preference. Lincoln was now the leader of the Republican Party and party unity was a high priority preference. Lincoln has some great anti-war quotes and I think it's plausible to accept that Lincoln did not want war, but peace was a lower priority preference than at the very least, Lincoln's most highest valued ends being unionism and Republican party unity. Lincoln did not want to see the country severed, certainly not on his watch in any case. So unionism was Lincoln's higher valued preference. So if we are generous to Lincoln and concede that he was anti-slavery, anti-war, pro-party unity and pro-union, then we have to figure out which of these issues is valued in which order. And since we have the benefit of Misesian analysis of human action, we know that action reveals preferences. People who focus on Lincoln's anti-slavery and anti-war rhetoric are looking at his words, but his words at best only reveal preferences that do not face opportunity costs. All else held equal, Lincoln would have preferred less slavery to more slavery and he would have preferred less war to more war, but the other variables are not held equal. Lincoln valued the maintenance of the union and this was something he valued so much that he was willing to go to war. Lincoln also clearly valued Republican party unity and this he valued enough to, at the very least, risk provoking the Confederacy in order to ignore his military leaders in favor of bowing to the preferences of the more hawkish and the more radical Republicans. Lincoln may have wanted peace and he may have despised slavery, but these preferences fell lower on his value scale than unionism and party loyalty. To me, this all seems revealed by his actions. Lincoln made plans to resupply Sumter knowing that it very well may provoke the Confederacy into starting the war. He knew this was a risk and it would be absurd to think that Lincoln believed that the resupply would be peacefully executed. He knew that if he followed the advice of his general in evacuating the fort, it would upset many Republican leaders and the more hawkish unionists. It would also and more importantly, likely mean the permanent severing of the country. But then, when we combined this with the knowledge of all the expert advice he ignored, I think it's easier to make a guess at his thought process. We know his preferences as revealed through his actions and we know what advice he ignored. He ignored the advice of General Winfield Scott. He ignored the advice of the ranking military expert and military engineering who helped design Fort Sumter, General Joseph Totten. He ignored the advice of nearly his entire cabinet, including his secretary of war. He ignored the advice from Major Anderson that would be sent to him in March, telling him that any plan to resupply Fort Sumter would be insane. And instead, Lincoln deferred to the advice of his postmaster general. Given this, it seems absurd to believe as the second interpretation contends that Lincoln genuinely believed a peaceful resupply was likely to be successfully executed. To believe that is to assume that Lincoln may have had good intentions, but must have been incredibly stupid. It would mean that historians are grossly overestimating Lincoln's intelligence. I don't think that's the case. Lincoln was clearly intelligent and even his critics don't dispute this. Thus, it seems much more plausible that Lincoln was making a calculated decision such as the synthesizers of interpretation three contend. He knew that war was a likely outcome, but it strikes me as naive for Lincoln to even believe that a successful resupply was possible. But evacuation of the fort was not the best option given his highest preferences of unionism and Republican party unity. So it would seem that the first interpretation being that Lincoln was deliberately maneuvering the Confederacy into firing the first shot to look like the aggressors does seem to be a reasonable view of things. Lincoln may not have wanted war, but he only wanted peace on his terms and he was willing to wage war if his terms were not met. This being the reunification of the country. And since it seems most plausible that Lincoln understood that peaceful compromise was not going to happen, Lincoln saw war as inevitable and he was the only person who could realistically view it as inevitable because he was the primary person who got to decide if war was going to be made. And Lincoln was ready to make it. Thus, knowing that his refusal to recognize secession and the Confederacy's refusal to accept compromise, Lincoln was left with an opportunity to make the Confederates look like the aggressors. Even if he successfully resupplied the fort, it would only kick the can down the road for a few weeks, but it was far more likely that it would provoke an attack for Lincoln not to recognize this given all the historical facts we know about the context of his decision, we would have to consider Lincoln to be the dumbest president in our history. So this is the Chris Cowton interpretation of Lincoln's actions. So take it for what it is. There aren't any other historians I know of making this argument, but this interpretation I think makes the most sense of both his rhetoric and his actions in the context of Lincoln's decisions. It's an interpretation that acknowledges everything Lincoln claims to have valued but does so in a way that acknowledges the trade-offs between those values, whereas other interpretations assert motives for Lincoln that just seem to raise more questions, right? They talk about what Lincoln valued, but they don't consider them as being in conflict with each other. And I think that's an important element in our analysis. In short, I mostly agree with the first interpretation. Lincoln was provoking the Confederacy into firing the first shot, but I take a different route to get there and I think this interpretation is strengthened by an understanding of human action as presented by Ludwig von Mises. I think the third interpretation, the synthesizers have some merit. Lincoln I'm sure did consider the possibility of the resupply going successfully and for him it was a win-win. So that's kind of how the synthesizers use it. So I think they're correct in that regard, but I don't think he expected that to be a very likely outcome. So I think the provocation of the Confederacy was really his primary strategy. So I lean towards the first interpretation in that attempt. So that's my argument until we can find a way to access Lincoln's inner thoughts, this is the best any of us can do and you're welcome to disagree with me. With that, I will end today's episode, but in the next episode, we will finally get to the action as we will cover the actual bombardment of Fort Sumter. For more content like this, visit mesis.org.