Could the US Civil War Have Been Avoided?

Could visionary leaders in the 1830s, 1840s have prevented it?

In many respects, the American Civil War seems INEVITABLE. A nation founded on equality embedded the inequality of African Americans into the Constitution at its birth by permitting slavery and the 3/5s Compromise. There was no satisfying moral compromise on this issue. As Abraham Lincoln said, the nation could not continue to exist half-slave and half-…