Confederate Veteran

Fort Sumter in 1861

Volume 34, September 1926, page 325

A lawyer's case that the United States held no valid title to Fort Sumter in 1861, because South Carolina's cession of 1805 was conditional on the fort being completed and garrisoned within three years, and it was neither.

An excerpt from an article by Prof. Robert L. Preston of Leesburg, Virginia, in the New York Times of 9 May, reprinted with the Veteran's introduction.

Cite as

Robert L. Preston, “Fort Sumter in 1861,” Confederate Veteran 34, no. 9 (September 1926): 325.

The page in the scanned volumeThe whole volume at the Internet Archive

Published
September 1926
Volume
34, no. 9
Pages
325
Author
Robert L. Preston

FORT SUMTER IN 1861.

The following excerpt from an article by Prof. Robert L. Preston, of Leesburg, Va., which appeared in the New York Times of May 9, on the "' Title to Governor's Island—Rights of the Federal Government and the State of New York as Set Forth in Old Statutes,'' is a most remarkable and interesting statement about the legal status of Fort Sumter in 1861:

"South Carolina in 1805 (Statutes at Large, Volume V, p. 501) provided as follows in regard to the cessions in Charleston Harbor:

""*That, if the United States shall not, within three years from the passing of this act, and notification thereof by the governor of this State to the Executive of the United States, repair the fortifications now existing thereon, or build such other forts or fortifications as may be deemed most expedient by the Executive of the United States on the same, and keep a garrison or garrisons therein, 7m such case this grant or cession shall be void and of no effect.'

"It may be of interest to state that Fort Sumter not only was not completed within the three-year limit stipulated in the contract, but was not completed in 1861 when Major Anderson transferred his garrison to it from Fort Moultrie. Moreover, it had never been garrisoned until he occupied it. So that, having neither been completed nor garrisoned according to the contract, either within the three years specified time or, for that matter, by 1861, Major Anderson occupied a piece of property that the United States had not the vestige of a right to occupy, and which was under the ownership, jurisdiction, and sovereignty of the State of South Carolina exclusively. In other words, he invaded the State of South Carolina with his troops—unwittingly, it is true, and on orders, but in fact, at any rate. Adverse possession even could not lie here in behalf of the United States, since the United States had not garrisoned it."'

The scan

What the scanner made of this page, and what it is in the printed original.

  • “7m such case” is “in such case”; “St. Phillip” style long-s confusions recur.

Editorial notes

Statements in this article that are wrong, doubtful, or worth setting beside another account. The article’s own text is left as printed.

  1. “South Carolina in 1805 (Statutes at Large, Volume V, p. 501) provided as follows”

    The 1805 cession act and its reverter clause are real, and correctly cited. The argument built on them is another matter: the United States had held and improved the site for over fifty years without the State moving to void the grant, and no court ever passed on it. It is advocacy, printed here as an example of the case Southern writers were still making in 1926.

  2. “it had never been garrisoned until he occupied it”

    True. Fort Sumter was unfinished and held only by workmen until Anderson crossed from Fort Moultrie on 26 December 1860 — which is exactly why the move was so provocative.