Is history going to repeat?

Attempting to allay fears of a potential brokered 2016 Republican convention,  radio talker Mark Levin cites the politics of 1860 as a success story. 

Levin’s point, in regaling his audience with this story, was to show that we’ve been through this process before. We’ve had a brokered convention before. And the party not only survived, but we nominated and elected one of the greatest American presidents in our nation’s history. 

Anyone care to remember what happened in 1861?