Who Attacked Who First And Started The American Civil War?

Though the firing on Fort Sumter is credited as the begining of the American Civil War, John Brown's attack on the armory at Harper's Ferry, Virginia was the reason the South mobilized into an army.

So just who started the Civil War.

If the South was only defending itself against attacks from the North, even though they were civilian attacks, they did have the right to defend themselves and suddenly the South no longer looks like the villain that most portray it to be, if you see slavery as an independant issue.