Re: “Can we at least talk about secession instead of jumping right into the war?”
As I recall, Lincoln went to war “to preserve the Union.”
In any event, like you, I support a peaceful separation of the former “United” States.
Interesting “preservation” techniques....
I remember talking to my granddaddy about the war. He had known many veterans when he was young. I posed the question to him “What if we had left Fort Sumter alone?” He was really stumped. He was a retired Army general so he certainly knew the military. We ended up writing down several scenarios. I wish I had kept them. He thought finally that there was a decent possibility that cooler heads might have prevailed had the South just waited it out.