Now imagine if we could have ended slavery and found a way to resolve things peacefully without escalating into a brutal war that killed 2% of the population, with massive suffering on both sides.

I'm personally convinced we couldn't. The blood was already on our hands when we decided to start counting slaves as 3/5 of a non-voting person.

Of course, those who passed this compromise may have been thinking: well let's not rock the boat or we won't have a Constitution! So maybe let's wait a year or five and revisit...

How did that work out for them? Or the slaves?