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.