The Time When New York City Seriously Considered Seceding From the United States

"A divisive presidential election threatened to destroy the Union. It was 1860, and Abraham Lincoln, on record as being morally opposed to the enslavement of human beings, had swept nearly every county in the Northeast and Upper Midwest, and lost every single one south of the Mason-Dixon line. He'd also lost every county in and around New York City, fracturing the nation's largest state."

""While other portions of our state have unfortunately been imbued with the fanatical spirit which actuates a portion of the people of New England, the city of New York has unfalteringly preserved the integrity of its principles in adherence to the compromises of the Constitution," he would later say. The real danger to the city, he added, wasn't the Confederacy but hostile upstate lawmakers in Albany."

"Before November 1860 was out, Wood was holding private secession planning meetings at his sprawling country estate on what's now the Upper West Side, with invitations going out to real estate tycoon William Astor, financier August Belmont and Democratic Party honcho Samuel Tilden. Financier George Law, one of Wood's most powerful allies, was dispatched to Washington to rally the city's congressional delegation to support the plan, while worried officials in Albany tasked Metropolitan Police Superintendent John Kennedy with gathering intelligence on the mayor's plans."

Abraham Lincoln won nearly every county in the Northeast and Upper Midwest in 1860 while losing every county south of the Mason-Dixon line and every county in and around New York City, splitting New York State. New York City Mayor Fernando Wood believed the Union was ending and sought the city's independence, citing cultural differences with upstate New York and loyalty to constitutional compromises. Wood held private secession planning meetings with wealthy backers including William Astor, August Belmont and Samuel Tilden. Allies like financier George Law were sent to Washington, while Albany officials monitored the mayor and newspapers received leaks that New York might secede.

Read at Smithsonian Magazine