I agree that Lincoln’s election triggered a crisis. However, my reading of that time period is that Buchanan’s indecisiveness caused the crisis to turn into a civil war.
If Buchanan had said clearly that the seven states could secede, there would have been no war. With independence an accepted fact, recognized by the Union and presumably by multiple foreign powers, Lincoln would have been too late to act effectively. If Buchanan had responded decisively to the first secession, there would have been no major war. Buchanan’s statement essentially that the states had no authority to secede but he had no authority to stop them, while arguably correct, produced the worst of all possible situations in the transition from Lincoln’s election to Lincoln’s inauguration.
Thanx. Don’t know a lot about Buchannon.
I recommend a book Hour of peril. Its about the lot to kill Lincoln as he passed through the Baltimore Train Station on his way to DC for the first inauguration. A lot of background on Pinkerton the detective, bout also a lot about what was going on just after the election.