The thing is, though, that the US Civil War was a conflict that *required* someone of Lincoln's scale to measure up to it. It's very possible that Seward or Chase could have led the USA to victory in that war, if only because the Confederacy's strategic position sucked and the USA had both more manpower and more options than the Confederacy did. The real-life war was horrible enough and left enough hatred. A war led by Seward or Chase would have been still moreso. To the degree that the South might well resemble a larger-scale Northern Ireland.