He actually had to. Without the financial and resource support of the Upper South states which rejected secession to that point, his little cabal of Deep South slaveocrats would have collapsed under its own corruption and ineptitude. Those lazy slave drivers could even figure out how to deliver the mail let along run a nation. Davis had to start a shooting war to get Virginia, North Carolina and he hoped Kentucky on his side by appealing to regional solidarity. He took a crapshoot that ended up costing 600,000 lives. Toombs warned him not to do it but Davis was desperate.
Davis wasn't desperate. He was clueless.
Walt