No they didn't. If Lincoln hadn't been able to provoke a reaction at Sumter, he was going to provoke a reaction somewhere else.
The financial Titans of the New York area needed Southern Independence stopped, and the only way to stop it was to go to war, so Lincoln was going to war one way or the other.
You are aware that he sent what the Confederate government believed to be a belligerent Naval force to stand 10 miles off the coast of Charleston? Multiple warships and armed men were sent, in clear violation of the armistice the two sides had with each other.
The Confederate forces surrounding the fort believed they would be trapped between two pincer forces with the Warships at sea and the Fortress at their backs. This would have been a very untenable position for them.
They did not start firing at Ft. Sumter until word had reached them that a Union Warship (The USS Powhatan, I think) was sighted as having joined the ships that were already there.
Even Major Robert Anderson who was in charge of Ft. Sumter felt this was a dirty trick by Lincoln.
I had the honor to receive by yesterdays mail the letter of the honorable Secretary of War, dated April 4, and confess that what he there states surprises me very greatly
I trust that this matter will be at once put in a correct light, as a movement made now, when the South has been erroneously informed that none such will be attempted, would produce most disastrous results throughout our country. It is, of course, now too late for me to give any advice in reference to the proposed scheme of Captain Fox. I fear that its result cannot fail to be disastrous to all concerned...
I ought to have been informed that this expedition was to come. Colonel Lamons remark convinced me that the idea, merely hinted at to me by Captain Fox, would not be carried out. We shall strive to do our duty, though I frankly say that my heart is not in the war which I see is to be thus commenced. That God will still avert it, and cause us to resort to pacific measures to maintain our rights, is my ardent prayer.
Lincoln started the war with a deliberate dirty trick intended to induce a Confederate Military response so that he could claim the moral high ground of not having fired first.
Lincoln was a shrewd man, and he applied his political skills to the initiation of a war that his Financial Elite backers in the New York power structure needed.
Oregon and Washington are both under sustained attack on gun rights funded by a group of Jewish high tech billionaires (and Bill Gates). Both states have had horrendous "gun show loophole" laws enacted that make it impossible to even hand a gun down to your son legally.
This same cabal is gearing up to agit-prop-cram a few more gun regs through.
So depending on what state you live in "gunageddon" may happen sooner than even the Hillary election, and may be brought to you by the gullible woman and cucked beta-males of your own state.
That leaves each one of us with "some deciding to do" about what response to have to becoming an "insta-felon" because a cabal has decided to make you one.
Historically war has always been a team sport, and I see no reason this one won't be as well. Got Tribe?
To revive an old-time Freeper saying: "BLOAT". Buy Lots of Ammo Today.
Refs for research? I've never heard of this angle before.
Sounds a lot like what happened at Pearl Harbor.
I have no doubt this is true. I believe the Bible verse, the love of money is the root of all sorts of evil. (1st Timothy 6:10) These ass hats were perfectly willing to see 600,000 Americans dead, just to keep their cash cow going.
I am very cynical of politicians and elitists, and I tend to think they are malicious, before I think they are ignorant and stupid. They may be that too, but most of them have evil intentions.