I don’t think Daniels was trying to summarize an entire war and its roots in one sentence.
There are a zillion ways he could have summed up Abraham Lincoln and his courage. He chose to say that Lincoln pushed the country into a Civil War--despite the fact that the cotton states seceded before the man was even inaugurated and that the Confederacy fired first.
It was a backhanded jab at Lincoln. Shame on Charlie for that.