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Lincoln’s use of force did not justify secession of the first seven states. In fact, he wasn’t even president yet when they seceded.

Your claim was that violations of the Constitution justified their secession. I’m still waiting for you to provide one single example of the federal government violating the Constitution in such a way as to justify secession.

Insofar as the argument that we would have a better country had Lincoln never fought the Civil War to keep the country together, it is a classic example of the “post hoc ergo propter hoc” fallacy. IOW, B happened after A, therefore A caused it and without A, B would never have happened.

In actual fact, the federal government pretty much returned to its prewar role after the war, with the massive expansion we all know and love not starting till the Progressive Era of the late 1800s.

More to the point, perhaps, do you have any reason at all to think that two countries with inevitable rivalries on this continent wouldn’t have led to even faster expansion of central government in each? What was the great driver of centralization in Europe? It was military and economic rivalry. Those countries, like Poland, that failed to centralize quite literally disappeared, devoured by those which did. In its final form, this military/economically driven centralization was the ultimate cause of WWI.

Is there any reason to believe USA and CSA wouldn’t followed a similar path?

You seem to be saying that a state would have to prove that the federal government was violating the constitution in some way, or secession would not be justified. Who would be the judge of that? The Supreme Court? The idea of sovereignty meant that a state could withdraw from the federal compact when it pleased and for reasons that seemed fitting to that state. At the time of ratification, that was the understanding of many. They would have been horrified to think that one group of states could invade another group and force them not to secede.