Your comments make even more sense when it is known that Lincoln was the railroad’s chief attorney. He wasn’t planning on running for office but his railroad buddies needed the union to stay together, so they put up Lincoln.
This was an angle that I hadn't considered when I first started studying the beginning of the civil war, but it fit with other evidence about corporate pressure to initiate a war to stop the south from leaving.
And the Railways act of 1862 was probably the largest corporate give away in history.
Another thing that people don't know is that during the Chicago convention, Lincoln used his railroad connections to bring in thousands of his agents to antagonize, intimidate, bribe, and block delegates in an effort to stop Seward from getting the nomination.
Lincoln was using brownshirt like methods before the brownshirts were ever thought of.
https://chicagohistorytoday.wordpress.com/2017/05/18/dirty-tricks-at-the-wigwam-5-18-1860/