Though I question how easy that would have been in the US. Probably would have taken a long time.
The Russian government finally abolished serfdom in 1861, about two months before Fort Sumter. It was a peaceful process (as it was in some other Central/Eastern European states) in part because the landowners had great say in what the final settlement looked like. The terms of emancipation were quite generous to the landlords and not so great for the peasants.
One major difference though is that in Russia many landlords had no great enthusiasm for serfdom and they were more than willing to do away with it as long as they were well compensated. Russia at the time also had no real Democratic traditions or culture of liberty/individual rights, etc. Russian nobles were not in a position to defy the state at all and in fact there were long traditions of noble service obligations to the state. When the state decided it was finally time to end serfdom, the landowners had little choice other than to get to work crafting the best deal for themselves that they could.
Same was true for Russians opposed to serfdom. There was heavy censorship of the press and writers were forbidden from advocating sweeping social change. Some would actually write about American slavery as a way of slyly alluding to the situation in Russia. The autocratic nature of the state prevented anything like the kind of passionate debate on the subject found in the US. It was much more subdued there.
In the US it was a much different story. I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that throwing large amounts of money at the problem over a long period of time could have led to the end of slavery, but who knows. Maybe the Civil War was inevitable? I really don't know.
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