"It cannot be said that this extraordinary body accomplished any good, from either the party or the patriotic point of view. For days thereafter, the Argus printed at the top of its editorial columns an appeal headed, "Let the People be heard." The Democrats, it said, "demand that the people may be allowed to vote for or against the Crittenden Compromise. The Republicans refuse to submit to the popular test." This was quite true, and the mass of the Republicans were not to be moved by such means from their position.
Something must be said of other expressions of the attitude of New York Democrats during the first few months of the year. In New York City, the most extreme sentiments of sympathy for the South were uttered. At the beginning of January, Mayor Wood sent to the Common Council his famous message, in which he said:
It would seem that a dissolution of the federal Union is inevitable……If these forebodings shall be realized. [It] will not only be necessary for us to settle the relations which we shall hold to other cities and States, but to establish, if we can, new ones with a portion of our own State….With our aggrieved brethren of the slave States we have friendly relations and a common sympathy. . . . 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 and the equal rights of the people of all the States.
Then, after speaking of the aggressions and usurpations of the state legislature at the expense of the metropolis, Wood continued: "How we shall rid ourselves of this odious and oppressive connection, it is not for me to determine." He virtually confessed that his scheme was impracticable, since he acknowledged that the legislature would not consent to it and that a resort to arms must not be thought of. But he asked nevertheless:".'…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 a nominal duty on imports, her local government could be supported without taxation upon her people. . ...."What a paradise that would have been for a politician like Wood.
A similar idea—New York State becoming independent or else the head of a free-trade confederacy embracing the middle west and western States and excluding New England—had been broached by the Albany Argus as early as the latter part of November, 1860, and had been reverted to more than once. In an editorial entitled "The Sentiment of New York," the Argus said:
We have no hesitation in saying that three-fourths of the people of New York would condemn any attempt to treat the States of the South as Rebels, instead of removing their grievances.... and would not only condemn but resist such an attempt. . . . When, however, the Southern States become de facto a separate Confederacy, we shall consider the present Union at an end in all its parts. Then New York will seek to gather around her, in mutual relations of friendship, the States which will naturally seek her alliance, and will open her ports and offer her internal lines of communication to their use. She will preserve her own freedom, and give to her sister confederates and to the world the boon of freedom of trade.
On the floor of the House of Representatives, Daniel E. Sickles declared that "in the event of secession in the South, New York City would free herself from the hated Republican 'State ' government of New York and throw open her ports to free commerce." Perhaps, these were not typical utterances. When, however, we find the same or similar treasonable views approved by such rival factors in the New York Democracy as the organ of the Regency, Wood, and a prominent member of Tammany, and when this fact is considered in connection with the Albany convention of January, 1861, perhaps it is not unreasonable to suppose—unpleasant as it may be—that there was a considerable degree of like sentiment among the Democrats of New York, which the events of April prevented from coming into fuller view. At any rate, such expressions were mischievous, since, as is well known, they encouraged the secessionists to believe that the North would be divided in case of war."
Political History of New York State during the Period of the Civil War by Sidney David Brummer
Pages: 123-126
I don't think it was quite as you made out it to be, but no argument from me that most were not of the opinion of Woods, but not all citizens and not all politicians were against the idea. New York City was loyal, but not totally loyal.
North Carolina was loyal and remained in the Union until Lincoln called for troops.
Respectfully,
William
Bringing the