Your equivocation of the fact that the Democrat slavers began shooting at Federal troops on January 9th, 1961 - months before Lincoln took office - makes your attempt at making President Lincoln the cause of the war dubious at best.
The Democrats were slavers then, and they are still.
[celmak]: Your equivocation of the fact that the Democrat slavers began shooting at Federal troops on January 9th, 1961 - months before Lincoln took office - makes your attempt at making President Lincoln the cause of the war dubious at best.
I've posted the following items in various separate posts before, but none of them to you.
You are perhaps forgetting that Major Anderson's soldiers fought with and overcame a ship's captain and hijacked his ship to take soldiers, wives, and supplies to Fort Sumter on December 26, 1860. When another group of Anderson's soldiers arrived at Fort Sumter earlier that day, they charged civilian laborers there with fixed bayonets to take control of the fort. Anderson's move to Sumter was against his orders and against the policy and the bargain made by President Buchanan with South Carolinian Congressmen not to change the situation in the Charleston forts.
War almost started in Charleston in December 1860 after Anderson’s move to Sumter, but cooler Southern heads prevailed. Here is how the people of Charleston reacted (from the Charleston Courier newspaper, as reported by the New York Times [italics as in the Times]):
The people were greatly incensed at the idea of a willful breach of those assurances of non action which had been volunteered by the Government at Washington and upon which so much reliance and confidence had been placed by the entire population, that every impulse to take the necessary precautions for their own safety had been restrained.
Instinctively men flew to arms. Orders were immediately issued to the following Companies to hold themselves in readiness for service: Washington Light Infantry, Capt. C. H. Simonton; Carolina Light Infantry, Capt. B. G. Pinckney; Meagher Guards, Capt. Ed. McCready, Jr.; altogether forming a portion of the Regiment of Rifles, commanded by Col. J. J. Pettigrew and Major Ellison Capers; also, to the Marion Artillery, Capt. J. G. King; Lafayette Artillery, Capt. J. J. Pope, Jr.; Washington Artillery, Capt. G. H. Walter; German Artillery, Capt. C. Nohrden; all under command of Lieut. W. G. De Saussure; Adjutant, Jas. Simmons, Jr.; Sergeant-Major, E. Prioleau Ravenel; Quartermaster-Sergeant, J. R. Macbeth; Surveyor, A Barbot: Surgeons, P. Gervais Robinson and Middleton Mitchel. Also, the Palmetto Guard, Capt. Thomas Middleton, and Cadet Riflemen, W. S. Elliot.
All the military forces thus ordered out promptly obeyed the summons, and the streets were soon enlivened by the appearance of individual members of the different organizations in their uniforms
The Times also reported that the Charleston Courier said:
Maj. Robert Anderson, U. S. A., has achieved the unenviable distinction of opening civil war between American citizens by an act of gross breach of faith.
Then again there was the Union sentry at Fort Barrancas in Florida who shot in the dark at a group of men (possibly a militia unit, I don't remember) approaching the fort, which they thought had been abandoned.
The Barrancas incident happened the night before January 9 incident you cited where Buchanan had sent 200 armed soldiers to Fort Sumter through South Carolina waters in a civilian ship, the Star of the West. The soldiers hid below decks on this ship to avoid being seen, but the word had leaked out that they were coming. The ship did not stop in response to shots across the bow, so then the SC guns fired at the ship itself, causing it to turn around and head back north. If someone is firing shots across your bow, the normal response would be to stop and find out why they wanted you to stop. But they were trying to sneak soldiers into Fort Sumter and didn't dare stop to be inspected.
By the way, lentulusgracchus is correct about Lincoln waiting until the spring session of Congress ended (actually the Senate, as the House had already adjourned). Here from the “Congressional Globe” on March 28, 1861, is documentation about the Senate checking with Lincoln to notify him that unless he has something to communicate with them, they were ready to adjourn:
Mr. Powell, from the committee appointed to wait on the President of the United States and notify him that unless he has some further communication to make, the Senate is ready to adjourn, reported that the committee had waited on the President, and had been informed by him that he had no further communication to make to the Senate.
That same day, March 28 [Klein, "Days of Defiance", page 358], Lincoln be instructed Fox to prepare an order arranging for the things necessary for the Sumter expedition, an expedition that his military advisors and cabinet previously said would result in a shooting war. Somehow possibly provoking a war was not important enough inform Congress and keep them in session? "Honest" Abe had not been honest with Congress.
Lincoln did not reconvene Congress until July after he had successfully maneuvered the country into war. On the other hand, Jefferson Davis reconvened his Congress on April 29.
Before the Northern fleet arrived at Charleston on April 11-12, 1861, Lincoln had met with various Republican governors to urge them get their forces on a war footing. Massachusetts was thus able to send troops to protect Washington one day after Lincoln called for them. General Winfield Scott called out the Washington militia a day or so before the attack on Sumter. Lincoln knew sending the fleet to Sumter would provoke a shooting war. IMO, that basically was his intention. That is why he planned his expedition to Sumter in secret and did not reconvene Congress until July. He did not want Congress to interfere with his plans.
IMO, Lincoln’s Sumter expedition was too small to work and appears to have been designed to fail. Lincoln sent an expedition of only 300 sailors and 200 troops, and he withdrew the most powerful ship from the Sumter expedition and sent it to Fort Pickens. His force in the Sumter expedition was well short of 5,000 regular army troops and 20,000 volunteers that General Scott said was needed to take and hold the fort or the 20,000 that Anderson advised.
On the other hand, sending an expedition too small to take and hold the fort might have been perfect if the objective of the expedition was to provoke a war that would gain the support of the North but not leave Fort Sumter as a Northern outpost that would have to be periodically/continually supplied and defended.
In mid March Lincoln had sent Ward Hill Lamon to South Carolina to let the governor know that Sumter would be evacuated. Seward was conveying the same message to the South Carolina Commissioners who had been sent to Washington to negotiate a peaceful separation and work out an equitable arrangement for the public debt and forts. That Sumter was soon to be evacuated was the official government line until April 8, when the news of Lincoln's approaching Sumter expedition was conveyed to the SC governor by a messenger from Lincoln. The SC Commissioners left Washington on April 11 charging the Lincoln Administration with "gross perfidy" over the Sumter evacuation.