i dunno but if he was really really smart he would have worked to avoid a civil war and deconstruct slavery in a way that would not have caused the problems we have today. a lot of Black and white slaves to government. i’m not a civil war history expert but this is just my opinion from where i see things today. Fed government control based on the 14th amendment which wasn’t needed. Once there was no slavery everyone born in the US had the same status under the existing constitution. enforcement of the constitution which didn’t happen is the same problem we have today. make another law, make another amendment, don’t enforce the one we have.
It needs to be realized that the European monarchic powers had a strong interest in seeing the US ripped apart. Britain ran spy networks from Canada against the North (Google Albert Pike) and France imposed the Maximillian dictatorship in Mexico with the hope of a western flanking operation. Britain was contemplating actively breaking the Northern blockade of Southern ports with their navy when Czar Nicholas I threatened to throw the Russian navy against them. Russia saved our azz and helped keep the European powers at bay during our Civil War.
I presume you mean Lincoln. In fact the insurrection began even before he took office and he was playing defense from the word go. The Lincoln administration took every reasonable effort at moderation and negotiation but the slavocracy wasn't interested in anything except war.
Lincoln was a dedicated abolitionist. He campaigned on his opposition to slavery. He could not run away from the issue, nor finesse it in such a manner as to retain the Southern states. They saw his election as proof that they engine of their economy would never be accepted by the rest of the Union, and that it was only a matter of time before slavery was abolished in the Union.
Lincoln had two choices. Either let them go, or use the superior industrial and military might of the North to subjugate them and force them back into the Union. There was no way he was going to negotiate his way out of the situation.