Do you know the rules in place today were not in effect in 1860?
Do you know that people haven't changed in the least, and the rules in place in 2016 were rigged, purposely, to allow a specific and totally unqualified boob who couldn't catch the please clap if the rules were intended to best allow the voting Republicans to cast their ballots and force the candidates themselves to earn their delegates?
Tell me you're aware of the RINO corruption that was going to saddle the nation with yet another treasonous and useless freakin' poison oak BUSH, thereby guaranteeing a Hillary win in 2016?
The rules were more difficult for the candidates in 1860, the candidates could only secure their delegates on the first casting of the ballot, then the delegates could vote as they wished. Seward failed to secure the necessary majority (2/3 of the vote, I believe it was), and in the meantime, the agents for Lincoln were busy working the delegates and getting them to promise to Lincoln on the second casting.
So, yeah, the rules were different, but in both 1860 and 2016 the GOP managed to nominate the best man for the times to do the job.
Back to the present. I'm certain the GOPe is still playing games with the rules to prevent another real conservative from getting nominated. These are the people that gave us McStain and then Romney, after all. But if Cruz and DeSantis have a knock-down drag-out fight over conservative principles...a POLITE fight, the Americans will take notice and one or the other will walk away with the nomination without alienating the other's voters.
The Principled Conservatives will still be out of sorts, because they don't know what a Conservative is...they're still tugging on their pony tails and asking how a conservative president will "help" them, little realizing that REAL conservatives help themselves, and help others, but never asks the government to steal their freedom, which is what government "assistance" does, always.