Some of your answers are downright bizarre. Lincoln wasn't a candidate in the elections to the Georgia secession convention. Free White propertied citizens clearly did vote in the other states. It was only South Carolina that decided not to count any popular votes or hold real popular elections in the 1860 presidential contest. Constitutional or not, you can't claim that popular votes that weren't even cast went against Lincoln and the GOP.
Had Lincoln chose not to levy troops - Virginia would have stayed in the Union, and the Confederacy would not have lasted long. Had Lincoln levied non-Virginian troops - they would have also stayed in the Union, and the war would not have lasted long.
It's a matter of conjecture how long the Confederacy would have lasted, but Davis and the secession commissioners were doing all they could to draw Virginia and the Upper South into the Confederacy. Understand that it was they who fired the first shot and hoped to gain the benefits from it -- not Lincoln or the United States.
Moreover, who's to say that the Virginia convention would not have voted for secession if an army drawn from other states had crossed its state lines on the way South? It's pretty clear to me that they would have. Even if a blockade had been imposed or the seceding states attacked in another way, it's likely that secession would have been a result.
This is pure speculation.
Geez, Louise, it's all speculation. How do you go from speculating about whether Virginia would have seceded to all of a sudden condemning "speculation"?
“It was only South Carolina that decided not to count any popular votes or hold real popular elections in the 1860 presidential contest. Constitutional or not, you can’t claim that popular votes that weren’t even cast went against Lincoln and the GOP.”
Show me some evidence that Lincoln would have attracted a significant portion of the votes in South Carolina.
“Understand that it was they who fired the first shot and hoped to gain the benefits from it.”
Oh, nonsense. So you’re suggesting that Lincoln’s goal wasn’t to crush the South at the first opportunity? He said as such.
“Geez, Louise, it’s all speculation. How do you go from speculating about whether Virginia would have seceded to all of a sudden condemning “speculation”?”
It’s not speculation that Virginia changed their mind after Lincoln tried to levy troops from Virginia. It’s fact.