I think you know we disagree about Lincoln's political program. I think he had it in mind for a long time to solve the "slavery question" his way, if he were elected President, and to impose a Whig agenda, by precipitating a crisis which would greatly enlarge his radius of action as the Executive in an emergency and allow him to maneuver outside the bounds of the Constitution.
I've posted up before, so you know I think it, that Lincoln's positions in 1858-1860 were completely political and purely for public consumption, that he had outlined his real program only to the happy few who attended the Republican convention of 1856, in the famous anti-slavery speech that nobody wrote down or took minutes on (I think at Lincoln's request). I think his 1856 speech delineated a political program that was far enough in advance of then-current public opinion to dazzle his closest supporters and make him, within the party, The Man on the subject of ending slavery.
I think he came into office with a program of precipitating a crisis and then driving the crisis to a satisfactory (from his POV) solution. I doubt seriously whether his negotiations during the interregnum were genuine attempts to keep the South in the Union, because he knew he could do ever so much more politically with the South out of the Union and out of the Congress, and that his policy was always a war policy, whose implementation began immediately on his taking office, as shown by the documents turfed up by nolu chan and rustbucket on the other thread.
BINGO! Congress could have been assembled in days not months if the Lincoln had actually desired to wrap his actions in the veil of legality. Lincoln waited until the Congress, having REFUSED to use force against the seceded states, adjourned, and then proceeded with his plans - refusing to meet with the peace commisioners, lying to former Supreme Court Justice Campbell et al about Ft. Sumter.