Oh, I disagree. Take the Civil War, for example. Neither it nor the emancipation proclemation ended slavery in the US. Slavery, as a legal institution, was already on the way out here just as it was in Europe and So. America. That war was about commerce, just like every other war in history. The northern slave holding states continued to hold slaves for up to a generation and a half after the proclemation. Meanwhile, Brazil, our major slave trading partner, continued their peaceful transformation from a slave to a yoeman labour market.
Doesn't matter that much anyway. We still have slavery, we just call it various other things (including "illicit")
My point, though, is that things do change all the time w/ or w/o violent action. The only difference between a peaceful revolution and a violent one is that, at the end of the day, there's some joker taking credit for everything at the end of the violent revolution while the people who bring about peaceful revolution are too busy enjoying the fruits of their labour to care about parades and memorials and all that bullshit.
What are politicians going to tell people when the Constitution is gone and we still have a drug problem?
--William Simpson
