How could the civil war be stopped?

If Lincoln had been voted out in November 1864, there would probably have been a compromise peace - which would effectively have given the South its independence./// Going back to before the first shot was fired, Lincoln could have evacuated Fort Sumter and let the South go it's own way. Instead he sent ships to re-provision the fort, presenting a more belligerent posture. There are letters in existence that Lincoln wrote to various political friends before the war in which he says that he's looking for a way to provoke the South to firing the first shots to start the war, allowing the blame to fall on the South. The war could have been stopped before it ever started.