Think big, Chief. Be creative. Had the southern leadership not launched their rebellion then Lincoln would have been nothing but a hack Illinois politician and probably a one-term president at that. PLUS the south would not have brought all that death and destruction upon iself. AND you could have kept your slaves for God knows how long. So if anyone needed killing if was about half a dozen fire-eating southern nitwits.
Lincoln did not seek political office after 1848 until he ran for senator. He seems to have become dissatisfied with politics and his success. Lincoln of course had almost no formal education, his mother died when he was nine and his father was functionally illiterate and opposed to "book learnin' " any way. Lincoln's step mother was supportive and treated him like one of her own. He loved her dearly.
But having been elected to Congress, he seems to have had a "is this all?" sort of feeling. He was 41 when he left Congress. He may have been having a mid-life crisis, and he was a very melancholy guy on the best day. It's thought that he had at least two bouts of suicidal depression. Lincoln did not run or seek re-election in 1850; he stepped aside for another player in the Illinois political machine -- this person was defeated.
From 1850-54, Lincoln was --not-- a politician. He didn't seek office.
But when he saw that slavery might expand, instead of being on the path of ultimate extinction that the framers wanted, he became reanimated, and the rest, you know.
Walt