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Well, they did draw Davis into firing the first shot. Of course he could have turned down that honor. Winfield Scott knew Davis well enough to know they he would not. Mr. Davis was a too-proud man.

Or just too stupid to see through Lincoln's "plot"? Those seem to be the choices if y'all keep insisting that Lincoln tricked them into starting their war.

I think that Davis knew what he was doing. I guess that Lincoln would not dare try to relieve Sumter because he knew it would provoke Virginia and Maryland to secede from the Union. Lincoln was working hard on the Virginians. They did secede, of course, but Lincoln ruthlessly kept Maryland from following suite. Don't think that Davis expected Lincoln to be so hard. It is my impression that the Confederates were expecting that their residence in Richmond would be short and that their eventual capital would be Washington. Had the northern states not been so quick in their military response, that would have happened. How differently would the course of the war developed in that case.