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Nobody wanted war except for Lincoln, a few rabid abolitionists and, a handful of Northern capitalists whose fortunes were threatened. Certainly, the Republican Party at large did not want it. And keep in mind that the federal government was largely funded by tariffs on goods entering Southern ports. Follow the money. Slavery? Well, one should also keep in mind that there were 33 states, and had the number of slave states remained constant, 27 more free states would have had to be admitted into the Union--for a total of 60 states--before an abolition amendment could possibly be ratified. That was not an immediate threat to the South as that was not likely to occur anytime soon. But, with the Southern states seceding -- or being forced to secede -- the issue of slavery could then be settled by force of arms at an time (although I do not consider that to be the primary motive; the South had been threatening secession since the Tariff of Abominations in 1828, which was a boon to northern industrialists -- to whom Lincoln eagerly prostituted himself --, but harmful to Southern agrarian interests -- and to New England ship owners -- and probably unconstitutional). And so, consider the following direct actions taken by Mr. Lincoln:

(1) Before his inauguration, Lincoln sent a secret message to Gen Winfield Scott, the U.S. general-in-chief, asking him to make preparations to relieve the Union forts in the South. Lincoln knew what he was going to do long before he even took office.

(2) Jefferson Davis sent peace commissioners to Washington to negotiate. Lincoln refused to meet with them.

(3) After inaugurated, Lincoln's generals recommended the immediate evacuation of Anderson's men from Fort Sumter. He knew that to resupply it by force at this point would be a deliberate act of war.

(4) Lincoln sent Gustavus Fox, a retired Navy captain who had come up with a plan for resupplying Fort Sumter which would force the Confederates to fire the first shots (under circumstances which would make them take the blame) down to Fort Sumter to talk with Maj. Anderson about the plan; Anderson wanted no part of it.

(5) Lincoln had Fox pitch the plan to his Cabinet They said that Fox's plan would start a war and were unenthusiastic. But he had Fox make the pitch a 2nd time and they gave in.

(6) Lincoln ordered the sending of three warsips and 500 troops to Ft. Sumpter to "relieve" the 86 who were stationed there.

(7) Lincoln informed the governor of South Carolina that he would re-supply Ft. Sumpter either peacably or by force, if necessary.

(8) Lincoln wrote to Fox, pronouncing the mission a great success,ending his letter with, "You and I both anticipated that the cause of the country would be advanced by making the attempt to provision Fort Sumter, even if it should fail; and it is no small consolation now to feel that our anticipation is justified by the result."

(9) Lincoln did not call Congress into session to declare war (until several months later in order to rubber-stamp it). He simply declared war.

(10) Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, usually read as an attempt to "heal" the nation's wounds, but delivered to a Northern audience only, with the South in shambles, hundreds of thousands dead, can also be read as Lincoln's (guilt-ridden?) self-justification and glorification of his actions in which he wraps himself in the mantle of God and declares that, as for war, "all dreaded it -- all sought to avert it." Hardly the case.

No, Lincoln had nothing to do with the start of the war. Uh huh. That's a good one.

And at what cost? To the Constitution? Yes; we are still fighting those losses -- disdain for the federal government, preference for state and local control, opposition to taxes, a continuing culture war . . . . And to the people of the time? Well, the latest revisions of the number of people killed run upwards of 850,000 (an equivalent percentage of today's population would be 8 or 9 million) and 2 million refugees. The new estimates mean that more Americans lost their lives than in all other American wars combined, and that far more women were widowed and more children were orphaned as a result of the war than has long been suspected. The printing of money drove the country into an economic depression, one which in the South would last for generations. But then, destruction of property in the South, in today's dollars, would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $800 billion.

And there were much larger philosophical consequences. In a letter to former Confederate General Robert E. Lee dated November 4,1866, British historian Lord Acton wrote " I saw in States Rights the only available check upon the absolutism of the sovereign will, and secession filled me with hope, not as the destruction but as the redemption of Democracy. I deemed you were fighting the battles of our liberty, our progress, and our civilization and I mourn for that which was lost at Richmond more deeply than I rejoice over that which was saved at Waterloo."

But, Lincoln's war? Well, I think so. But, it has been put more simply. The late Shelby Foote, widely recognized as the leading historian on the War, when asked to explain the cause of the war, responded with a simple story: "A Union soldier met a Southern soldier on the battlefield and asked, "Just why are you fighting?' And the Southern soldier replied to the Yankee, 'Why, we're fightin' because y'all are down here'." Indeed.