It's been said many times that if the Founding Fathers had attempted to ban slavery, the US would have fractured and collapsed. But could it have been possible, instead of banning it on the spot, to adopt a plan to gradually phase it out over a long period of time (perhaps up to 50 years)? I was under the impression that many of the Framers, saw slavery as a "necessary evil" that they couldn't ban because their livelihoods depended on it, and that white supremacism hadn't really developed yet. Would there have been more support for ending slavery if it was a long-term solution instead of an immediate one?