However, neither were there any impediments to proscribing slavery hidden in the fine print. As the 13th Amendment proves, the Constitution as ratified in 1788 did contain a mechanism for abolishing slavery once the political capital became available to support the change.
Without the original ambivalence there might never have been a United States, yet in that ambivalence also lay the tools for ending slavery.
Well not really. We pretended to ratify the 13th amendment, but it wasn't a valid ratification. You cannot have armies in the State capitols of 11 states threatening the legislature and the populace with dire consequences if they do not do exactly what Washington DC orders them to do.
We had 11 puppet governments "ratifying" the 13th amendment, but it was really Washington DC voting 11 times to give itself more power. No one dared defy the power of the Army, and it was the Army that passed the 13th amendment.
This is not how a constitutional amendment is supposed to work. Agreements made under duress are regarded as invalid in our legal system, but everyone looked the other way when this tactic was used to "ratify" the 13 amendment.
Do not think for a moment that this ratification represented the actual will of those 11 states. It was clearly coerced out of them.