They owned it to the same degree that the British owned New York after Independence was declared.
The Southern states were part of the U.S. before the rebellion began. They were part of the U.S. while the rebellion was ongoing. They were part of the U.S. after the rebellion was put down.
Apparently the courts didn't regard it as serious enough to point to it as the beginning of the war.
You didn't read the court's decision, did you? Do they pick the firing on Sumter? The firing on the Star of the West? The firing on the Rhoda Shannon? The seizing of federal facilities? The court had to pick a date so they chose the date of the blockade declaration. And even then the court realized the problems that posed when they wrote, "But the war did not begin or close at the same time in all the states. There were two proclamations of intended blockade: the first of the 19th of April, 1861, embracing the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas; the second of the 27th of April, 1861, embracing the States of Virginia and North Carolina; and there were two proclamations declaring that the war had closed, one issued on the 2d of April, 1866, embracing the States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, and Arkansas, and the other issued on the 20th of August, 1866, embracing the State of Texas. In the absence of more certain criteria of equally general application, we must take the dates of these proclamations as ascertaining the commencement and the close of the war in the states mentioned in them. Applying this rule to the case before us, we find that the war began in Alabama on the 19th of April, 1861, and ended on the 2d April, 1866."
You are putting words in the mouth of the court that don't belong there.
Yeah, I said that.
No, you said the first act of the war was the blockade proclamations. The court itself noted that the first hostile acts of the rebellion had occurred before then. Legally the U.S. participation in World War II began on December 8, 1941 with the declaration of war. But the first hostile act had happened the day before.
And in the process of doing so, decided the first act of war as having been committed by Lincoln.
Here is a link to the court decision in The Proctor case:
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/79/700/case.html. Please tell me where the court refers to it as the first act of the rebellion?
An additional point. He wasn't "obliged to act during the recess of Congress", he deliberately waited until he knew Congress was in recess before acting. Another bit of evidence that this was intentional.
He didn't have to wait long. The House of Representatives had recessed on March 3rd, the day before his inauguration. The Senate recessed on March 4th after confirming Lincoln's cabinet.
If it is endless repetition of the same morally indignant assertions, then I may not even last that long. I've been in plenty of situations where everyone on a website ganged up on me, and when I was younger, I would still patiently kick their @$$, but now I'm getting to a point where I have better things to do than to argue with cultists.
I doubt that "moral indignation" would drive you away. It'd be the total destruction of your arguments that would do it.
There are some "true believers" that no amount of evidence will convince, and they tend to be the loudest and most verbose of the lot.
Believe me when I say I know exactly what you mean.
If I think they can offer reasonable counter arguments, I will listen. If they simply keep repeating a mantra, I won't.
Give it a shot. Should be fun.