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Prior to the firing on Ft. Sumter, the majority of Tennessee was against secession, afterward, it past by 108,339 votes for secession to 47,233 against secession. Eastern Tennessee was against it, the rest of the state was for it. Georgia voted for secession, there are claims there were voting irregularities in some counties. Keep in mind that the Constitution of the US was barely approved in many of the states, with only 5 having a super majority.

Tennessee might well have reversed itself in the post Sumter 2nd election. But the process was so irregular, I believe that we cannot know for sure. With an alien army, the CSA, already invited in and widespread voter intimidation in the more slavery-oriented regions, there is cause to doubt. But no matter how the people would have voted in a free election, it was not for Governor Isham Harris and his political henchmen to disregard the February vote, the last vote on record, and take it upon themselves to invite the Confederacy to overrun the state.

I think the general lack of super majority support for Secession came back to haunt the CSA late in the war. The hardcore true believers of the Confederacy had volunteered early and tended to be sent to the immediately critical Virginia theater. The reluctant warriors tended to be more in the West and that's where the Confederacy fell apart while the do or die boys were still fighting for a stalemate in the long battle for Richmond. And the presence of a large unenthusiastic segment created a critical base for erosion of the general support for the war when the going got tough.

I think the disregard of the Constitution that you rightly decried would be a danger no matter what path Lincoln took. The heirs of the Confederacy, the southern Democrats of the New Deal era, were generally as much for intrusive government as anybody when they thought it could further their states.

It's a pleasure debating differing POVs with somebody who appreciates the history.