Lincoln and Civil War research is FUN!

[Wild Bill]

Let's not be too hard on Lincoln not believing the South would secede, After all. look at the historical record as Lincoln surely did:

Episodes of Threatened Secession from the 1787 Constitution: 1798 (Kentucky [one state alone] and Virginia [several states together] Resolves), 1814 (Hartford Convention [New England secession]), 1832 (Nullification Crisis [South Carolina over the tariff of 1828]), Abolitionists (1840s [Over the Constitution 's approval of slavery as a "covenant with death and an agreement with hell"]), 1850 (Nashville Convention [over the Compromise of 1850]). Remember that NY, RI, and VA all signed the Constitution with secession provisos amended to it. None of this proved to be big talk so the secession of 1860-1861 was the exception to the rule till then.

Bill N. said it best, Lincoln was a fast learner, by demand of changing events