Slouching Towards Fort Sumter? American Greatness ^ | 29 Jan, 2026 | Victor Davis HansonPosted on by MtnClimberMinnesota’s defiance of federal immigration law echoes pre–Fort Sumter nullification, forcing Trump to choose between enforcement and letting blue states slide toward open rebellion. In the months before the April 12, 1861, firing on Fort Sumter, there were lots of sharp divisions in the North about the proper reaction to the first seven Confederate states that had already left the Union. But after Fort Sumter, Lincoln—who was hated as much by the Confederates as Trump is by the woke and socialist left—gained a consensus that the Constitution had no clauses about any lawful departure from the union. But it did operate under a clear supremacy clause that made state obstruction of federal law and occupation of federal property veritable sedition.