Ideally, yes. But I can also imagine a cleaving of the union at its inception and the founding of two separate countries on this continent, one for which slavery was quickly abolished and in the other, an entrenchment of slavery that no war could undo. Could it have been better? Oh yes. Unquestionably so. And I hope that none of my comments suggested otherwise. Could it have been worse? I guess I'm just cautious in stating unequivocally that it couldn't have been, as hard as that position may be to defend.