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As a southerner, I consider the secession of South one of the more foolish political acts of the last two hundred years. It is an act comparable to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor or the German declaration of war on the United States in 1941.
Secession, by its nature, was a political and not a legal question. Had the South attempted to leave the Union through an act of Congress, it is possible that the North might have been amenable to sort of separation, especially since by 1860 many abolitionists had concluded that slavery would never be abolished except by force, a step that few in the North were willing to take. In fact, many Northerners, and not only the abolitionists, damned union with the slaveholding South, and thought it better to rend the Union than to continue the relationship.
Linclon would have been averse to legal separation, but he was elected by only a minority of votes and in a weak political position. But if the South were to have been reasonable and willing to solve the crisis peacefully, Linclon might have forced to accept a compromise that went against his desire to perserve the Union.