[Aurelius]

Nevertheless, Lincoln still provoked it.

[Non-Sequitur]

Yeah, an additional 200 or so men in Sumter put the whole confederacy at risk. Lincoln could have put 20,000 men in Sumter and he still couldn't have threatened Charleston or the confederacy. Davis fired because he wanted a war, he needed a war worse than you claim Lincoln did. Without a war he would never get Virginia and North Carolina off the fence. And without them he would be stuck with a weak and truncated confederacy without a hope of getting out from the shadow of the United States. He wanted the other slave-holding states bad enough that he was willing to bet the entire future of the confederacy on the war. He bet and he lost. Lincoln didn't kill the confederacy, Jefferson Davis did.