In fact, free blacks in urban situations were quite well off before the Civil War. After emancipation, urban black populations suffered a terrible decline in wealth and status. The reasons for this decline are complex, but they include an influx of unskilled rural ex-slaves, a glutted labor market, and a dilution of black status. This last phenomenon is quite interesting, because the ante-bellum black artisans in the cities were approaching stable middle class status. I am familiar with one study that clearly shows a change in white attitudes toward blacks as a class that came with emancipation. In Delaware, the Quaker element in the population was quite strong, and some major abolitionists were based here. Yet we were a slave state. Gradual emancipation was built into our laws, and owners were forbidden to manumit slaves who were no longer productive. Of course there were ways around the laws, but generally sudden emancipation was seen as a bad thing, even among some of the less radical Quaker abolitionists. Anyone who manumitted elderly or infirm slaves was obliged in Delaware to provide for them, sometimes by giving a bond. Manumission was not a simple matter, and any attempt to characterize it in entirely moral terms is futile. Manumission, or emancipation, was primarily an economic issue, at least to the slave owning element of the population. The slaves may not have considered it an economic issue, but they certainly suffered economically if manumission was not managed properly. I suspect the harsh economic effects suffered by antebellum ex-slaves could have been avoided if more states had adopted manumission systems like Delaware's that provided for the interests of both owner and slave. But to characterize emancipation as a universally good thing is oversimplification I cannot accept. The evidence certainly does not support such a sweeping generalization, however politically correct it may be. To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html