were the greatest
sufferers. Her Mayor, Fernando Wood, prior to the war (January 6,
1861), in a Message to her Common Council, denominated the Union
as only a "confederacy" of which New York was the "Empire City";
and said further that dissolution of the Union was inevitable; that
it was absolutely impossible to keep the States "together longer
than they deemed themselves fairly treated"; that the Union could
"not be preserved by coercion or held together by force"; that with
the "aggrieved brethren of the slave States" the city had preserved
"friendly relations and a common sympathy," and had not "participated
in a warfare upon their constitutional rights or their domestic
institutions," and, "therefore, New York has a right to expect,
and should endeavor to preserve, a continuance of uninterrupted
intercourse with every section." He denounced other parts of New
York state as a "foreign power" seeking to legislate for the city's
government; claimed that "much, no doubt," could "be said in favor
of the justice and policy of a separation," and that the Pacific
States and Western States as well as the Southern States would each
soon set up an independent Republic. But Mayor Wood, not content
with all this disunion nonsense, said further:

"Why should not New York City, instead of supporting by her
contributions in revenue two thirds of the expenses of the United
States, become also equally independent? As a _free city_, with
but nominal duty on imports, her local government could be supported
without taxation upon her people. Thus we could live free from
taxes, and have cheap goods nearly duty free. In this she would
have the whole and united support of the Southern states, as well
as all the other States to whose interests and rights under the
Constitution she has always been true; and when disunion has become
a fixed and certain fact, why may not New York disrupt the bonds
which bind her to a venal and corrupt master--to a people and party
that have plundered her revenues, taken away the power of self-
government and destroyed the Confederacy of which she was the proud
Empire City? Amid the gloom which the present and prospective
condition of things must cast over the country, New York, as a Free
City, may shed the only light and hope of a future reconstruction
of our once blessed Confederacy."( 1)

This most audacious communication ante-dated all Ordinances of
Secession save that of South Carolina, and prece