Sure he did. He started it, he could have stopped it. Or not started it to begin with.
That is naive. Lincoln had already sent Porter to Pensacola to start a war there. Lincoln deliberately started the war. He did exactly what his own Cabinet said would start a war, and his orders to Porter were just the backup plan to start a war in Pensacola if the confederates didn't take the bait in Charleston.
Lincoln was going to have his war one way or the other because he could not let the South trade directly with Europe and thereby cut out his Benefactors in New York.
New York needed a war to blockade the South, and New York was going to get a war one way or the other.