There had to have been a better way to end slavery, say by giving all slaves free passage to the land that their ancestors had unjustly been taken from, and instituting a free labor system to replace them in The South.
It was tried with Liberia.
The large black population of Washington DC apparently is a part consequence of 1) none of the countries that sold their ancestors into slavery wanted what to them were especially foreigners, 2) they weren’t willing to give up any good land for the project (and the people organizing Libera didn’t have huge deep pockets to buy some nice place even if some African or Muslim prince had been willing to sell them a nice territory), and so 3) Liberia was at the beginning a really bad place and a lot of folks couldn’t handle it there.
As for an actual BETTER option, well ... I’m kinda imaginative and yes, I do see what I as a time traveler might do, or better what a Christian protagonist of a fictional story might do, but that story, which could it have come to pass, would have left many 19th century men North an South gobsmacked (some possibly quite offended) if it got any traction at all so maybe it best left to the corners of the dreams that first gave them form.
I mean, more than just Abolitionist being willing (as they were not, in fact) to do the good that they sought to do at their own expense (doing it at other people’s expense is inherently what it means to use government to make it happen ... though the Brits at least did their version of that the right way) by joining in common cause to free slaves, whole families at a time by buying them out of slavery, and then follow up on that to redress basic issues with the lack of education AT LEAST to the level known among some poor rural whites in this fictions town in this fictional story), and THEN doing even better by doing it for the ennobling reason of serving Christ, or even borrowing the OT idea of a kinsman redeemer for slave who confessed Christ ... that would indeed have been a marvel!
Think of what kind of a healing balm such otherworldly madness might have been to the hearts of its freedmen?
Or what might have been the affect on others even if they thought the folks doing so were loons, but, dear God what magnificent loons!
Like I said, much, much better than anything that happened.
... It was a great dream though....
A majority of people labor under the misconception that the purpose of the war was to end slavery. It wasn't. That "purpose" didn't get added to the war until a year and a half into it. For the first year and a half the intent was to keep slavery just as it was.
Slavery would have eventually attritted away, but it would have taken at least another 20 years, and possibly 80 more years.
It would have still been a better solution to let it die naturally than kill so many people and destroy so many other people's lives.
Can't sell free labor.