[jeffersondem]

“But nowhere in his speech does he advocate a violent solution.”

In the introduction of the House Divided speech Lincoln said:

“In my opinion, it (slavery agitation) will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South.”

Clearly in this speech, Lincoln wanted listeners to believe he was for “ultimate extinction.”

Later in the speech Lincoln termed his political opponents enemies.

But Lincoln knew what you have acknowledged repeatedly: he didn't have the votes to do it peacefully with a lawful constitutional amendment. You have gone so far as to say it could never happen until the United States had 61 states.

What Lincoln needed was the predicted crisis - real or imagined. And his navy found that crisis in the Gulf of Tonkin Incident.

I meant to say the Fort Sumter Incident.

[Bull Snipe]

I meant to say the Fort Sumter Incident.

Good for him, Jefferson Davis believed he had a logical reason for his actions. Little did he know, or maybe realized, that he had been smarted by the smartest man in the United States.

[Bull Snipe]

I meant to say the Fort Sumter Incident.

Yep, he pegged Davis correctly. No brains, little common sense. He convinced Davis to fire on for Sumter. Lincoln was the smartest man in the room. Davis, a mindless pawn in Lincoln’s scheme to control the Continent.

[BroJoeK]

jeffersondem to DoodleDawg: "What Lincoln needed was the predicted crisis - real or imagined. And his navy found that crisis in the Gulf of Tonkin Incident.
I meant to say the Fort Sumter Incident."

The better analogy is Pearl Harbor, since both Pearl Harbor and Fort Sumter aroused Americans in the conviction that war was the only answer.
And both events were the deliberate choice of the military power which attacked the United States.