According to my history book, the South fired on Ft Sumpter before the North invaded the South.
I also do not believe that the South ever requested to negotiate terms of their secession with the Congress before acting.
The South seceded unilaterally as Buchanan’s term ended and before Lincoln was even sworn into office. Had Lincoln done anything other than what he did to try and keep the Union together, he would have been unfaithful to the Oath of Office that he took.
Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas didn't join the Confederacy until after Sumter when Lincoln demanded they supply troops to put down the rebellion.
That's probably because they left out the part about Lincoln sending Warships (8 ships altogether) to fire on the Confederates surrounding Sumter. I count the sending of those warships with those orders as the initiation of hostilities.
I also do not believe that the South ever requested to negotiate terms of their secession with the Congress before acting.
One does not need to negotiate the terms of exercising a right asserted by the Declaration of Independence. One simply exercises the right.
Had Lincoln done anything other than what he did to try and keep the Union together, he would have been unfaithful to the Oath of Office that he took.
That's just spin. Lincoln was willing to trade Ft Sumter for assurances from Virginia that they would remain in the Union. What part of the Oath of Office allows that?
His oath was utterly binding on whatever he wanted, and utterly breakable on anything he didn't want.
There is a section of the constitution that absolutely requires fugitive slaves to be returned back to their owners. It doesn't give you an option to not do so, it doesn't have an "exception clause" for owners who are in rebellion, it explicitly says they have to go back.
Lincoln ignored that, and ordered his entire army to ignore that.
West Virginia. The US Constitution explicitly states that a state cannot be created from the territory of another state without the approval of the state legislature from the originating state.
Ignored that too.
How about "Freedom of Speech, and of the Press?"
Major-General John A. Drx,Commanding at New York:
Whereas there has been wickedly and traitorously printed and published this morning in the New York World and New York Journal of Commerce, newspapers printed and published in the city of New York, a false and spurious proclamation purporting to be signed by the President and to be countersigned by the Secretary of State, which publication is of a treasonable nature, designed to give aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States and to the rebels now at war against the Government and their aiders and abettors, you are therefore hereby commanded forthwith to arrest and imprison in any fort or military prison in your command the editors, proprietors, and publishers of the aforesaid newspapers, and all such persons as, after public notice has been given of the falsehood of said publication, print and publish the same with intent to give aid and comfort to the enemy; and you will hold the persons so arrested in close custody until they can be brought to trial before a military commission for their offense. You will also take possession by military force of the printing establishments of the New York World and Journal of Commerce, and hold the same until further orders, and prohibit any further publication therefrom.
A. LINCOLN.
Lincoln even acknowledges that he broke constitutional law, but he said he did so to save the greater good. (Which is what dictators always say.)
So when you can pick or chose the parts of your "Oath of Office" which you want to support or deny, it really isn't about the Oath of office anymore, is it?