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There was certainly a precedent for a good Federal/State tariff fight leading to war.

Andrew Jackson was about to send an army against South Carolina a mere 30 years earlier over the Nullification Crisis. The issue became moot before shooting started but Jackson was more than willing to use force and South Carolina was prepping to shoot back. The argument over Federal supremacy vs State’s rights didn’t get resolved, with both sides claiming victory in the Nullification Crisis.

Immediately prior to Lincoln, James Buchanan had sent an army into Utah Territory to force the locals to acknowledge and obey Federal authority. The long forgotten Mormon War, which like the Nullification Crisis ended before any shooting started but it was headed that way.

Now Buchanan was still in office when South Carolina seceded and The Star of the West was fired upon while trying to resupply Fort Sumter - so why didn’t he call up the army to put down this rebellion like he had been willing to do with Utah? Apparently it’s because Utah was a Territory and directly governed by the Federal government, whereas South Carolina was a State and had its own government. This was an important distinction to Buchanan, and while he believed that secession was illegal he didn’t believe that the Federal government had the right to prevent states from doing so.

Timothy Pickering and the New England Essex Junto had been ginning up regional hostility as early as the election of Thomas Jefferson- Garry Wills wrote a book on this “”Negro President”: Jefferson and the Slave Power”. Thomas Fleming’s more recent book “A Disease in the Public Mind” also deals with the longer term issues that eventually led up to outright war.