DBWI: Abraham Lincoln went into politics?

How much success could he achieve if he decided to go into politics instead of being an extremely successful businessman and inventor? How would North America and rest of the world be different if he did?
 
I think he's that lawyer who forced a slaveowner who brought his slave into Illinois to get out in a week or lose her. He partnered with the famous Lawyer Stephen T. Logan. Some urged him to enter the state legislature earlier when he was a bit of a freelancer, but he wanted to focus on his clients. If his attention was divided, he might have never impressed upon Logan.
 
Wait, was he the lawyer who beat Stanford? If he hadn`t done that, who knows how far back abolitionism would be pulled. Slavery would be an American staple into nearly the 20th Century.
 
What people forget is that he was a railroad lawyer first, which is what positioned him to become what he was. Oh, he's a fairly obscure figure nowadays, but had there not been a Lincoln: that combination of legal savvy, the tinkerer's talent, and a sharp eye for business: the US would have never had a transcontinental railway network that's the envy even of Britain, let alone the rest of the world.
 
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