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X: “Davis declared that he was issuing letters of marque and reprisal authorizing attacks on union shipping almost two weeks before he said he only wanted peace.”

Indeed, if you study the time line of Confederate steps toward war, you’ll see they were months ahead of the Union at every phase.
To cite just one example, in early 1861 the Union army totalled about 15,000 more than half scattered in small forts out west.
But in early March, before Lincoln even took office, the Confederate congress ordered up an army of 100,000 troops.

After Fort Sumter, Lincoln requested 75,000 troops to put down the rebellion, Davis responded with 300,000 more Confederates and a declaration of war on the United States.

And there’s much more... point is, all along the way the Confederacy lead the charge towards war.
Lincoln was slow responding, but he never backed down.

That’s why our pro-Confederates here loathe and despise Lincoln to this day.

Lincoln Commences the Civil War; Orders the Blockade of the Confederacy.

After it became clear that Lincoln intended to send war ships to Charleston and Pensacola, in early April 1861 Union General-in-Chief Winfield Scott developed a plan for the execution of the onrushing war. Scott’s concept, later dubbed the Anaconda Plan, consisted of the blockade of the Southern seaports and control of the Mississippi River. This, he believed, would strangle the South by preventing it from exporting its crops for currency, preclude its receiving needed supplies and weapons to support its war effort, and isolate the western from the eastern sections of the Confederacy.

Lincoln was aware that the blockading of ports was an act of war. In fact, since an act of war is, by implication, taken against another state, some in his cabinet argued that a blockade would constitute a tacit recognition of the sovereignty of the Confederacy, something the North wanted to avoid. Lincoln was less interested in the legal definitions than in the military utility of the plan, and he approved it despite the objections.

After the newspaper reports of the Naval movements southward, and Lincoln's message that if resisted, the Navy would land its reinforcements at Sumter, on Friday, April 12, 1861, Confederate forces were ordered to defend the harbor and opened fire on Fort Sumter.

Lincoln immediately began moving to meet the crisis head on. The U.S. Army had less than 800 officers and only some 14,000 enlisted men, yet the federal government needed to mobilize for war. The only law in existence permitting the raising of additional troops was the Militia Act of 1792, which empowered the president to call out the militia to suppress insurrection. Using this law, on April 15, Lincoln issued a proclamation declaring that an insurrection existed, called out 75,000 men to put it down, and convened a special session of Congress for July 4.

On April 19, Lincoln issued his proclamation blockading Southern ports. It provided that “a competent force will be posted so as to prevent entrance and exit of vessels” from the ports of the states in rebellion. Then, to make the proclamation official, he signed this document, authorizing “the Secretary of State to affix the Seal of the United States to a Proclamation setting on foot a Blockade of the ports of the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas.” The seal was affixed to the blockade proclamation, which was announced that day. It was a de facto declaration of war by the Union against the Confederacy.

After the war, the Supreme Court issued an opinion fixing the exact dates on which the war began. It held: “…The proclamation of intended blockade by the President may therefore be assumed as marking the first of these dates.” Thus, according to the Supreme Court, Lincoln’s signature on this order sealing the imposition of the blockade marked the official beginning of the Civil War.