What were the short-term causes of the Civil War?

Short-term causes
of the American Civil War certainly include Lincoln's refusal to meet with the commissioners
that were sent by the Confederate government to buy Fort Sumter and other federal property that
was located in the Confederacy.  This was followed by Lincoln's launching an invasion fleet from
New York to invade South Carolina.  The Confederacy responded to this by subdueing Fort Sumter
so that the invasion fleet could not land.

Upon the election of Lincoln to
the Presidency, six southern states seceeded and formed the Confederate States of America.  In
those days, secession was a Constitutional right, and  most citizens of America, both northern
and southern, so believed.  When Lincoln called for the states of the union to send soldiers to
conquor the states that had seceeded, seven more states seceeded.  (Two of these states had
strong factions that remained loyal to the Union so that both sides claimed them.)

So we have it in order: Lincoln's refusal to sell federal property in the
Confederacy, Lincoln's launching of an invasion fleet, and Lincoln's call for troops to suppress
Constitutional rights.

But why did Lincoln direct events towards war?  If the
Republican party and its president had earned the reputation of being the party and the
president who presided over the dissolution of the Union, they would never have had a chance of
being relected to power.

Much of this is discussed on pages 345-378 of vol.
II of A Constitutional View of the War Between the States by Alexander H.
Stephens (ca. 1870).  This book is still admired by American Constitutional
scholars.