# Did Lincoln help provoke the attack on Ft. Sumter? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 18, 2006, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-lincoln-help-provoke-the-attack-on-ft-sumter/353098 "2006-04-18T00:50:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![What\_the](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f4b2a3/32.png) [@What\_the](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2013, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-lincoln-help-provoke-the-attack-on-ft-sumter/353098/21 "2013-06-12T12:09:22Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Remember, too, that Lincoln was still working to keep Virginia in the Union (it didn’t secede until after Ft. Sumter). Attacking any of the Confederate states would have immediately put Virginia solidly in their camp. > > As it was, Virginia seceded due to Sumter, as did three other states. But Lincoln would have much preferred keeping it in the Union (if, for nothing else than the fact that Robert E. Lee had indicated he’s fight for whatever side his home state was on). Virginia seceded due to Lincoln’s call for troops which was a result of Sumter. I wonder if that might have been handled any differently. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2013, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-lincoln-help-provoke-the-attack-on-ft-sumter/353098/22 "2013-06-12T14:54:03Z")
Secession was in effect already a done deal after Sumter. Virginians were simply looking for an excuse and seized on one convenient. > [@Little Nemo](#): > > I’m not Hari but I think you’re misinterpreting what he said. Lincoln wasn’t trying to maneuver the Confederacy into firing the first shot. He was hoping to avoid a war altogether. He still hoped a peaceful reunification could be negotiated. And if that wasn’t possible, he at least wanted to secure the allegiance of the border states before any war started. Certainly true. At the time, he definitely felt that given some time tempers would cool and the whole mess would have been avoided. It might have been _true_, as well, but in the end irrelevant. Much like in WW1, too many people wanted war and were driven by too much passion and excitement to back away from the brink. They only found out that events did not go as planned after they were committed to that course of action. The Fire-Eaters were ready and rarin’ to go in this case, and they desperately wanted to force the issue on those same grounds - they believed that without some kind of wedge to drive between the North and South people would eventually get tired on the nonsense and go back to business as usual. There’d be some kind of settlement to mollify Southerners, and with another year or two their cause would have lots its glamour. So in as far as it goes, _both_ sides wanted the South to strike first for symbolic reasons - if a blow was struck at all. Lincoln, as with many border-state and Midwestwerners, wanted to wait out the anger and let the issue drop. If Virginia had not seceded, North Carolina would not have done so. The South would have been utterly incapable of resistance without those two states. There would have then been precisely zero chance of Kentucky or Maryland joining, and the entire Confederacy would likely have dissolved ignomiously within six months. (It’s always interesting to see what you wrote years ago on a subject. Zombie threads have a purpose, I’m a-supposin’.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-lincoln-help-provoke-the-attack-on-ft-sumter/353098.md?page=1)