[BroJoeK]

Handy Dandy: "So,......you agree.
Lincoln was first and foremost concerned with preserving the Union.
We only disagree on what his reasons were."

DiogenesLamp: "He was willing to give up the "Union" in exchange for Virginia offering assurances that it would remain.
Apparently "Preserving the Union" was negotiable regarding the 7 lesser seceded states."

No, Lincoln's (alleged) offer to Virginians might have prevented war from starting at Fort Sumter, but that's all.
It would not stop war from breaking out somewhere else, Fort Pickens, for example.

And we know that Jefferson Davis needed war to flip the Upper South and Border States from Union to Confederates, so even if Lincoln had worked a Fort Sumter deal with Virginia, I think war was all but inevitable anyway.

DiogenesLamp: "You are trying to use "Preserving the Union" as a blanket cover for what his real specific goal was.
Keeping the money.
Yes, if he "preserved the Union" his wealthy and powerful allies would get to keep their income streams, and so too would his government in Washington DC. "

That is pure fantasy based on nothing more than DiogenesLamp's vivid imagination.

DiogenesLamp: "I am reminded of an abusive Husband who "preserves the Union" by beating near to death the wife that tried to leave him."

Except in this particular case there was no "abuse", and the "wife" left without a legal settlement, with guns ablazing and taking truckloads of the "husband's" stuff.
"She" also claimed ownership of nearly half the house and declared war when he wouldn't immediately give it up.

As for who beat whom "near to death" when it was all over the "wife" had killed far more of "his" people than "he" did of "hers".
And "her" overall population statistics were indeed a little "off" in the incomplete Reconstruction census of 1870, but had been fully restored, along with cotton production, by the time of the more accurate 1880 census.

[DiogenesLamp]

No, Lincoln's (alleged) offer to Virginians might have prevented war from starting at Fort Sumter, but that's all. It would not stop war from breaking out somewhere else, Fort Pickens, for example.

This theory only works if you postulate that Lincoln is a back stabbing liar and had no intention of giving Virginia what they thought they were getting. (Which was to leave the seceded states alone.)

Yes, if Lincoln fully expected to start the war somewhere else, and only told Virginia what they wanted to hear until he could pull another trick to start a war, then you are correct.

Speaking of Fort Pickens, that is exactly where Lincoln sent Lieutenant Porter in the Powhatan under hand carried secret orders.

Porter immediately upon arrival, tried to fire on Confederate shore batteries and did indeed fire on Confederate ships, and all with no knowledge of the events in Charleston.

So yes, Lincoln fully intended to start the war somewhere else and was only conning Virginia to get them to do what he wanted long enough to keep them in line.