Oh, wait, you were talking about Lincoln. So sorry, the term “Goon” you threw around confused me.
Went back, read that second paragraph. Sorry, it doesn't say what you think. He was referring to the slaveowners choosing war. Which is, of course, the truth of the matter.
By the way, unlike Jefferson Davis or Robert E. Lee, Abraham Lincoln never had a slave whipped. Which I think disposes of the term “Goon”.
Yep, went back and read that second paragraph again just now. Definitely talking about the slaveowners.
"On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, urgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came."
-- The Goon's Second Coronation speech as Caesar
You can't have it both ways, those "evil" maniacal agents were trying to avert war by negotiation. Therefore the Illinois Butcher™ wasn't trying to avert the war. Simple rhetorical logic.