Only in the same sense that President Roosevelt "provoked" the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor by moving the US fleet there.
Pearl Harbor and Fort Sumter were both US military bases on Federal property.
Pontiac: "It is my view regardless of Lincoln’s intentions his actions made war inevitable."
Only in the same sense that a woman might make rape "inevitable" by dressing attractively.
But regardless of how she is dressed, rape is still rape, and metaphorically, that's what the Confederacy did to Fort Sumter.
Pontiac: "In saving the Union he sacrificed the Constitution.
In freeing the slaves he sacrificed the lives 600,000 citizens and the liberty of millions more."
Wrong on both counts.
First, the US Constitution clearly contemplates and provides for vigorous Federal responses to "rebellion", "insurrection", "domestic violence", "invasions", "war" and "treason".
And slave-holding secessionists began committing all of these crimes immediately with -- indeed often even before -- formally declaring their secessions.
So Lincoln was simply doing what his sworn oath required: "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
Second, while slave-holders did secede -- then started and formally declared war on the United States (May 6, 1861) -- in order to protect slavery, Lincoln was, in fact, committed to protect slavery in the states where it already constitutionally existed.
So Lincoln went to war to defend the Constitution against open rebellion and a formally declared war on the United States -- not to end slavery.
Only later -- after the Union learned that freeing slaves was a great way to defeat slave-holders militarily -- did Lincoln begin to consider emancipating all Confederate slaves.
Pontiac: "Yes I agree that the slaves had to be freed but I do not believe that the Civil War was the only way to achieve that goal."
In fact, over many years several alternate plans -- i.e., using Federal funds to purchase slaves' freedom -- were offered and rejected by slave-holders.
And the Civil War began not to free slaves, but rather to defeat the Confederacy's declared war on the United States.
Pontiac: "I can not agree that the union had to be saved.
Yes it was desirable to save the union but I do not agree that it was worth the price paid in blood and treasure and in my opinion the repercussions of the Civil War have been largely for the worse. "
The Civil War, with all its costs in blood and treasure, was fought because secessionists started war, then declared war and sent invading armies into every Union state and territory near the Confederacy, including: Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and New Mexico.
So there was no possibility that Lincoln could let the slave-holders "go in peace".
Pontiac: "Had Lincoln stood by and done nothing to prevent secession slavery would have eventually died of its own accord.
The world was on the verge of the industrial revolution that would have made slavery less and less economical.
Slavery’s spread to the west would have been checked by the North being in position of the western territories."
Wrong again.
First of all, both outgoing President Buchanan and incoming President Lincoln "did nothing to prevent secession".
Civil War did not start because of secession.
It started because the Confederacy made and formally declared war on the United States (May 6, 1861).
Second, in fact by 1860 slavery itself, and the South in general, became the most prosperous they had ever been, and there was no end in sight.
Average southerners were considerably better off economically than their northern cousins, and over half their growing wealth consisted of increasingly valuable slaves.
Nearly all southerners well understood that slavery was one of the biggest wealth-producing institutions ever invented, and were determined to defend it -- to the death if necessary.
Plus, Confederate military aims included not only defeating the Union to incorporate its remaining slave-holding states (i.e., Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri), but also foreign conquests in the Caribbean (i.e., Cuba) and Central America to which slavery was thought well suited.
So a Confederate victory over the United States would have stopped and reversed the long-term trend to abolish slavery world-wide.
Southern slavery would have a new lease-on-life, one certainly strong enough to survive until it could make alliances with the slavery-ideology of certain national socialists in central Europe...
Pontiac: "After some period of time reunification may have been possible but even if it did not the two countries could remained friends and have had profitable trade between them and the Constitution and Federalism could have survived."
The US Constitution and Federalism, plus the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments certainly did survive the Civil War.
Indeed, it survived another 50 years afterwards, until the "Progressive Era" 16th and 17th amendments put the Federal government on its current path of unlimited growth -- from 2% of GDP in, say, 1912 to nearly 25% of GDP in 2012.
And that "Progressive Era" was started and cheered on by the Solid Democrat South's votes for its heroes like Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt.
Also in his Speech, Lincoln refused to mention slavery, at all, as a reason to invade the South; and instead, Lincoln endorsed the Permanent Slavery Amendment recently passed by Congress.
Lincoln stated in his Speech,
"The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and imposts (import taxes); but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere."
The only property belonging to the federal government that Lincoln said he is willing to invade the Confederate States to possess are two tax collection forts: Fort Sumter at the entrance to Charleston Harbor in South Carolina and Fort Pickens at the entrance to Pensacola Bay in Florida.
Therefore, if there is to be a war, observers are predicting that Lincoln will start the war by invading Charleston Harbor with warships to hold Fort Sumter, a tax collection fort.
The thirteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States was proposed to the legislatures of the several States by the Thirty-eighth Congress, on the 31st day of January, 1865. At that time the USA and the CSA were still at war and so the representatives and Senators of Southern States were not seated in congress and did not vote in the amendment process. So either the Southern States had law fully seceded or the 13th Amendment was not passed lawfully.
Many Southern states ratified the 13th Amendment only because Congress had made ratification an official condition of their readmission to the Union after the Civil War. So the 13th was ratified under duress. So maybe the Constitution did not survive the Civil War intact.