It is even conceivable that Lincoln, rather than Davis, would have been the president of the Southern Confederacy. Only a combination of the most extraordinary circumstances made him the nominee of the Republican party for the presidency in 1860. If he had been the leading statesman and politician of Mississippi, his path to the Confederate presidency, as the success of Davis proved, would have been comparatively easy. Without Lincoln, the anti-slavery agitation would have gone on just the same. The Republican party would have been constituted just the same. Everything up to the 18th day of May, 1860, when Lincoln was nominated for president at the Wigwam in Chicago, would have gone on just the same. But lacking Lincoln, what a world of things afterward would have happened differently! In the first place, it is probable that Seward would have been nominated for president. Very likely he would not have been elected; and as it was Lincoln who "smoked out" Douglas, it is probable that Douglas would have prevailed over all other Democratic candidates and been nominated at Charleston and elected president. In which case there would have been no secession, and very likely no war, either at that time or later. Slavery would have become intrenched, to yield, perhaps, in the end only to economic influences, the operation of which had already doomed it. But if Seward had been nominated and elected, secession would have taken place and war would have resulted. The sort of leader that the Union would have had in Seward may be inferred with perfect certainty from the famous, or rather infamous, proposition entitled, "Some Thoughts for the President's Consideration," which Seward solemnly laid before Lincoln less than a month after his inauguration. This extraordinary document, one of the most senseless and wicked programmes ever prepared by a man of state, advocated a change of the national issue from slavery to a foreign war; it advised that war be at once declared against France and Spain, and "explanations demanded" from Great Britain and Russia! In order that this brilliant programme might be carried out successfully, Seward suggested that he himself be made Dictator! This scheme, I repeat, illustrated the sort of alternative material that we should have had, lacking Lincoln. Chase, indeed, who was also a leading candidate for the presidency, would have been wiser. But in no position that he ever held, after 1860, did Chase bring forth any of the fruits of genius. Cameron, of Pennsylvania, was a greater man, but did not command general support. Neither did Edward Bates, of Missouri, also a western candidate for the presidency.