[meandog]

On top of which, the South probably would have been left to go their own way if that IDIOT Chesnut hadn’t opened fire on Fort Sumter. He should have starved them out and taken their surrender afterwards.

I doubt that; for Lincoln it was all about preserving the union. Incidentally, Edmund Ruffin (a Virginian) actually fired the first shot at Ft. Sumter (he later, upon hearing of the surrender at Appomattox, wrapped himself in a Confederate flag and blew his brains out.) I believe you are thinking of Mary Chesnut who chronicled much of the war in her diary for the South.

[Spktyr]

Colonel James Chesnut, Jr. is the idiot who asked for Fort Sumter’s surrender, and when he didn’t get it, ordered his forces to fire into the Fort.

[PeaRidge]

You said: “Texas still produces a lot of oil and I don't believe that Mr. 0bama is going to forgo that needed resource to help pay for his grandiose plans.”

You also said: “for Lincoln it was all about preserving the union.”

"Preserving the union" is the euphemism that historians have adopted to rationalize Lincoln's attacks on the South.

He wanted to maintain access to Southern cotton and the Mississippi. That is why he sent the warships to Charleston and Pensacola.