Sorry but I do not buy the moral equivalence argument. There is nothing that can justify attacking US property and responding to those attacks are not morally equivalent with attacking.
This was not a matter of not trying hard enough to avoid war since the Southern political class had been working mightly to bring about secession no matter the cost. While almost no one in the North wanted a war. Maybe a tiny number of fanatical abolitionists did.
Lincoln came in the middle of these schemes and conspiracies and, in NO way caused the war.
Lincoln could have removed the garrison at Ft. Sumter, which would have relieved tensions, and he could have received the Commissioners that were sent by the Confederate Government. Instead,he chose to attempt to re-supply, which he knew full well, would provoke the South, which makes him guilty in every way. The war was caused by much more than that issue, regardless.
Actually, the "radical" abolitionists such as Garrison and Phillips were opposed to war and did not support Lincoln (at least in the early years of the war.) They had argued for years in favor of "Free State" secession from the Slave States, and had no use for the Constitution which they saw as a compact with evil since it acknowledged slavery to be legal. (Garrison actually burned it in public as a protest.)
The "one issue" people, radical abolitionists in the North and Fire Eaters in the South, just like today's Cindy Sheean and her Code Pink buddies, didn't give a damn about Union. They wanted it "their way" and they wanted it now and to hell with everyone else!
his war & his MILLION needLESS deaths.
NOBODY else even comes close to his guilt.
laughing AT you.
free dixie,sw