What an interesting viewpoint you have. Presumably, then, since the Russian Tzar's emancipation of the serfs preceeded America's emancipation of her slaves you believe we could have done with a bit of Napoleonic freedom from the barrel of a gun? Line a few thousand of us Americans up against a wall. A whiff of grapeshot and--poof--freedom and right-thinking takes root in the hearts and minds of the survivors.
It's true. Irony is dead. I mourn it's passing....
Maybe the slaves would have been better off? I don't know and not really appropriate for comparison. The Russian peasants could not have been worse off than they were under the Russian nobility. Like slavery and organized crime, the system was run on the fear and threat of physical violence reinforced by actual violence up to and including murder.