How New York City Tried to Secede From the Union
The plot that could have changed American history
We’re all taught in school that South Carolina was the first state to officially secede from the Union after Abraham Lincoln’s election in 1860. But which part of the country was second? You may be surprised to learn that it could have been New York City. Two days before Mississippi became the second state to secede on January 9, 1861, the mayor of New York City officially proposed that the Big Apple break off from the United States. The saga of his failed attempt to secede demonstrates just how fragile the Union was and how embedded slavery was in the American economy.
On January 7, 1861, New York Mayor Fernando Wood issued a shocking proclamation. He acknowledged that the nation was about to fall apart, and he believed that New York (which at this point was just Manhattan; Brooklyn was a separate city until 1898) “must provide for the new relations which will necessarily grow out of the new condition of public affairs.” He then went on to praise his “aggrieved brethren of the Slave states,” with whom New York shared “friendly relations and a common sympathy.” Wood criticized the “fanatical spirit” of New England abolitionists. He then proposed that New York City jump off the ship of state while everyone else was leaping — severing the “odious and…
