[BroJoeK]

x to quadrant: "We don't know what would have happened if the Confederates hadn't fired on Fort Sumter.
Maybe they would have attacked elsewhere.
Maybe the Federals would have attacked them.
Maybe there would have been a compromise solution."

Here's what we know for certain:

1. In his inaugural address in February 1861, Jefferson Davis warned:
   "if...the integrity and jurisdiction of our territory be assailed, it will but remain for us with a firm resolve to appeal to arms and invoke the blessings of Providence upon a just cause."

2. In his inaugural address on March 4, 1861, President Lincoln said:
   "In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war.
   The government will not assail you.
   You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors.
   You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to 'preserve, protect, and defend it.' "

So Lincoln was committed to peace, so long as the Confederacy did not start war.
But Davis was committed to start a war whenever he believed his "integrity and jurisdiction" were being assailed.

That's why there's no doubt, none, that Jefferson Davis is responsible for starting Civil War at Fort Sumter.

[quadrant]

I have never denied that Lincoln was committed to peace - and to a peaceful compromise of the issues dividing the North and South. Nor have I ever denied that the leaders of the South acted recklessly and foolishly not only when they seceded but also when they fired on Ft Sumter. Secession was a rash as Hitler's declaration of war against the US.

Davis and his very reckless followers bear almost all of the responsibility for the outbreak of the war. Their actions were absolutely inexcusable. Without seriously and carefully thinking through the situation, they led the South into a war that could not be won.
There is a section in Clavell’s novel SHOGUN when Toranauga’s (I think I spelled that correctly) supporters urge him to declare war on the Regent and the Council. Toranauga dismisses the suggestion. To himself, he laments the rashness of his supporters. He notes that for him to take such a reckless step puts not only his own life at risk but also the lives and property of all who support him. He has, he tells himself, no right to take such an action.
I only wish Davis and the rest had such wisdom.

My only (apparent) disagreement is the contention that slavery was the cause of the war. Slavery was an issue, a serious one to be sure, but in 1861, only the Abolitionists (and Lincoln wasn't one) demanded an end to slavery. Lets not forget that William Lloyd Garrison was so dismayed at the prospect of abolition that in the late 1850’s (1858-59, I think) he actually burned a copy of the US Constitution.
Also, Garrison quarreled bitterly with Joseph Jay (the son of John Jay) when told by Joseph Jay - who was a major Constitutional scholar in his own right - that slavery was embedded in the Constitution and could not be abolished except by amendment.

No rational reason existed for the South to secede. The South had everything to lose and nothing to gain - except a phantom independence that would have been difficult to maintain.

[x]

So Lincoln was committed to peace, so long as the Confederacy did not start war.

That was my view. Lincoln wasn't going to attack Sumter after promising publically that he wouldn't attack.

But as we're considering all contingencies in an atmosphere of uncertainty (and talking about hypothetical situations that we can't make conclusions about with any certainty) I wanted to leave open the possibility that a lot of different things -- just about anything -- could have happened six months or a year or several years down the hypothetical road. One incident follows another and before you know it, you could have had a war.