[rustbucket]

The South sent commissioners to Washington to negotiate terms for the forts, etc., but the President would not officially receive them.

Also, the Lincoln administration kept telling Southern representatives and the Governor of South Carolina that Fort Sumter would be evacuated, when it had already decided to make the resupply effort. A majority of the Lincoln cabinet was opposed to the resupply plan and thought it would lead to war, but Lincoln did it anyway.

[GOPcapitalist]

The South sent commissioners to Washington to negotiate terms for the forts, etc., but the President would not officially receive them.

Not even that - he wouldn't even recieve them unofficially, or through an intermediary negotiator, or through another government official serving as third party. That didn't stop them from trying to meet with Lincoln. They sought meetings for weeks. Two different sitting United States Senators who had not seceded yet and a Supreme Court Justice all offered to act as negotiators between the commissioners and Lincoln. Lincoln refused every single one of them and refused to even meet with sitting US Senators from the south!

After repeated attempts failed the three commissioners returned to Montgomery and filed a report with Davis. They effectively said that it was impossible to work with this man, Lincoln, on anything at all because he would not even acknowledge that they existed.

[WhiskeyPapa]

A majority of the Lincoln cabinet was opposed to the resupply plan and thought it would lead to war, but Lincoln did it anyway.

Good for him.

Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

Also, the Lincoln administration kept telling Southern representatives and the Governor of South Carolina that Fort Sumter would be evacuated...

Of course that is false.

President Lincoln said clearly in his first inaugural:

"The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the government..."

So I don't know why you would tell a big lie like that.

Walt

[Non-Sequitur]

The South sent commissioners to Washington to negotiate terms for the forts, etc., but the President would not officially receive them.

Wrong. The southern commissioners were sent "for the purpose of negotiating friendly relations between that government and the Confederate States of America" and only as a secondary task was the "settlement of all questions of disagreement between the two governments upon principles of right, justice, equity, and good faith." First and foremost was the recognition of the legitimacy of the southern rebellion and that was a non-starter from the beginning.

Now, had the commissioners been sent for the settlement of all questions of disagreement between the states upon principles of right, justice, equity, and good faith, then there is no doubt that Lincoln would had talked with them as long as it took to reach an amicable settlement.