The war started in 1856 in Missouri and Kansas. Read your documented history and note when Lincoln gained power he began stirring the war pot going on between these two states. This border war was the precursor and was started by people primarily from Massachusetts.
I have read my history and if memory serves by the time Lincoln was inaugurated seven states had already seceded, several forts were under siege, and the Confederacy had already been building their army. And since I live next door to the state I also know that Bleeding Kansas was equally the result of the thousands of pro-slavery Missourians who moved there as well as all these Massachusetts people you speak of (actually anti-slavery people from all the Northern states, not just Massachusetts).
If you read the history, you will see that the "Kansas" issue was settled before Lincoln was elected. As to the "border war", the pro-slavery forces that invaded Kansas territory to rig elections played a very large role in the outbreak of violence, as did the pro slavery Democrat party power structure in Washington under President Buchanan.
"Bleeding Kansas" had become the focal point of the slavery crisis. The Kansas-Nebraska Act, signed three years before Buchanan came to power, allowed Kansans to decide by election whether to be a free or slave state. Chaos had ensued as Missouri "border ruffians" crossed into Kansas to vote for a proslavery territorial government in 1855. Free-Soilers opposed to slavery subsequently formed their own government and boycotted a call for a constitutional convention for the new state, which the proslavery forces then dominated.
Buchanan, eager to retain the support of proslavery Democrats, endorsed this proslavery constitution known as the Lecompton Constitution, though the document had been supported by only a minority of whites in Kansas. Even Buchanan's own territorial governor urged him not to accept these results. Instead, Buchanan sent a message to Congress urging acceptance of Kansas as a slave state. In Congress, Senator Stephen Douglas boldly challenged Buchanan's endorsement of the Lecompton plan and derailed it. He claimed that it was a fraud, passed by only a small minority of the voters in Kansas and therefore violated the principle of "popular sovereignty." Nevertheless, Buchanan prevailed over Douglas in the Senate.
In the House, a prolonged debate, with pro-Douglas Democrats joining Republicans, led to a compromise solution: the Constitution would be returned to Kansas for another vote. A new election was held in Kansas for a constitutional convention. This new convention soundly rejected slavery and set the stage for the admission of Kansas as a free state in June of 1861.
Source: http://millercenter.org/president/buchanan/essays/biography/4