Maitland,

         Can you provide any credible web sites with your information? I've
just been over the sites I've used for information before and cannot find
anything on negotiations, where and when these negotiations took place and
who attended them. Closest I've come are the calendar entries on "The
Crisis at Fort Sumpter" ....
http://www.tulane.edu/~latner/CrisisMain.html  It details actions of
Lincoln and his Cabinet, but it does not include details on Presidential
meetings with SC folks or their ambassadors.  I does mention that the fleet
sent to feed the soldiers at Fort Sumter who had recently been denied
permission to go to the city and purchase food and necessities contained a
troop carrier that was to stay afar unless Confederates fired on the
provisioning ship. Not exactly "soldiers in the holes of the ships"  ... <grin>

Whether or not Lincoln "planned" to force the hand of the south is
immaterial. It was the hand of the south that fired the first shots in the
war. It was the hand of the south that dropped it's farce of pretending to
negotiate and grabbed it's gun.

And let's be honest, Lincoln did not want to concede to the demands of the
seceding states. He had a duty to protect federal property, not just give
it away on a whim.

                                 Anne

At 05:59 AM 2/26/03 -0800, you wrote:
>Any way you wish to rationlize it...Lincoln, while negations were
>UNDERWAY, lied and planned to force the South's hand.  The last thing the
>South wanted was war, but felt forced into it by Lincoln's dishonesty and
>lies.

Anne Pemberton
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http://www.erols.com/stevepem
http://www.educationalsynthesis.org

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