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Lincoln could have done anything he liked. He showed contempt and disregard for the Constitution, by committing illegal acts such as dissolving the Maryland Legislature, Suspending Habeas Corpus, etc.

All of that happened "after" the shooting statred, not before.

Yeah, but Lincoln was the one who promised no "invasion" in his fist inaugural address and then sent battleships into the South, so in effect Lincoln kickstarted the shooting.

Here are the words of a brave senator we all need to remember even if history at large has forgotten him. Representative Clement L. Vallandigham of Ohio had this to say on the floor of the House of Representatives on July 10, 1861:

"[One of the] last and worst acts of a Congress...which it ought not to have done...was the passage of an obscure, ill-considered, ill-digested, and unstatesmanlike high protective tariff act, commonly known as the Morrill Tariff.

Juast about the same time, too, the Confederate Cognress...adopted our old tariff of 1857...fixing their rate of duties at five, fifteen, and twenty percent lower than ours. The result was...trade and commerce...begand to look to the South.

The city of New York, the great commercial emporium of the Union, and the North-west, the chief granary of the Union, began to clamor now, louidly, for a repeal of the pernicious and ruinous tariff. Threatened thus with the loss of both political power and wealth, or the repeal of the tariff, and, at last, of both, New England and Pennsylvania...demanded, now, coercion and civil war, with all its horros as the price of preserving either from destruction...The subjegation of the South, and the closing up of her ports-first, by force, in war, and afterward, by tariff laws, in peace, was deliberately resolved upon by the East."

These call-it-like-is (READ: this is a war of brother against brother over taxation) words from a first-rate class act NORTHERN senator caused Lincoln to have this gentleman arrested without warrant, imprisoned without being charged, and deported.

Let's remember Vallandigham as an American hero for a moment.

If you read my post carefully, I was pointing out that the South didn't trust Lincoln to uphold the law or the Constitution. His actions later on AFTER secession proved his character in that regard.