It was the Slaveocracy that intentionally split the Democrat party in 1860 into sections that assured any Republican on the ballot would be elected President knowing full well that was the only way they could even get the Deep South to agree to secession.
The had pushed for secession for 10 full years, even before anyone outside if Springfield IL. knew who Lincoln was.
And to get the Upper South to go along with secession, they had to start a shooting war. Without Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee, the Slave Power of the Cotton States was a joke. They needed the war to form a nation and they saw Lincoln as a week, country bumkin who would not be able to mobilize a response.
It is not entirely different than people saw Reagan in 1980, or Bush pre 9-11.
They figured wrong.
Sounds like a load of crap to me. The South was being snowed under by the industrial power base/abolitionists up North in Yankeeland through the push to have territories in the west admitted as free soil. The South wanted to maintain parity in Congressional seats and with the Abolitionist/industrial power base push for the "free soil" territories, once those territories achieved a political status, the Southern States would be the minority every time. The secession of the Southern States was constitutionally done under the 9th and 10th Amendments. Lincoln's view that the "Union was perpetual and in existence since the founding of the country" was WRONG. The "Union" didn't come into existence until the ratification of the Constitution by the soveriegn states, who (by the way) didn't give up all their sovereignty when they ratified it.
For the edification of you ignorant Yankees - Ratification means agreement to adopt. Federal = shared power. Thereby the United States of America was a UNION OF SOVEREIGN STATES with the Federal Government having Constitutionally limited power. The major portion of the power rested with the States, only the powers which are in Article 1 of the Constitution are what the Fed is supposed to operate under. The Bill of Rights were understood to be a prohibition against the Federal Government prior to 1867! Lincoln could not constitutionally call anything a "rebellion" nor could he call up troops. He called it a rebellion to sell a bill of goods the dumb Yankees would buy (they did) and launched an illegal war of conquest of the Southern States which by this time were their own sovereign nation. The war which you think was to free the slaves, wasn't about freeing slaves at all, it was about not letting the Southern States go. Slavery would have died a natural death within ten years of 1860 due to the inventions of Cyrus McCormick and Eli Whitney. It was a push by the fanatical abolitionists and the Yankee Industrial power that got the ball rolling. Like it or not, those are historical facts. AND while we're at it, Virginia had a clause in their Constitutional ratification document that reserved for them the right to withdraw from the Union if they saw the Fed becoming abusive of its powers. Lincoln, and the North were wrong, and if you dig enough you'll find out how wrong they were!
I might recommend a book for you to peruse though. The name is "War For What" and it was published in 1991. A great eye opener. I know the truth hurts, but you're a big boy and you'll get over it.