If true then Lincoln was certainly not alone in that. The same sentiments held sway over the South as well.
The difference is that Lincoln was in control of events, as Buchanan had been before him when shots were fired at The Star of the West. Buchanan had sent an army to suppress the Mormon rebellion in Utah Territory but he didn’t choose to do the same against South Carolina. I suppose if he had and had started the civil war himself he would be regarded as a Great President instead of the goat that he usually is.
It was Lincoln’s decision to call up 75,000 troops for an invasion rather than let events play out short of war. The battlefields are in the south, not the north, a fact ignored since its meaning is obvious on its face.
Lincoln’s decision for war, and he made this on his own Congress being out of session, pushed the wavering border states into joining the Confederacy, guaranteeing a long and bloody war.
The true push for war came from Sumner, Stevens, Stanton and the rest of the Radical Republicans. Lincoln wasn’t fanatical like they were but he allowed them to pressure him into war.