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The Segregationist New York Mayor During the Civil War
He was one of the biggest opponents of the Thirteenth Amendment
“His Highness, King Abraham Africanus the First — our Great Usurping Caesar, violator of habeas corpus and freedom of the press, abuser of states’ rights…radical Republican autocrat ruling by fiat and martial law affixed his name to his heinous and illicit Emancipation Proclamation…[which] has obliterated millions of dollars’ worth of personal property rights and ‘liberated’ the hundreds of thousands of hopelessly indolent Negro refugees.” — Fernando Wood in Lincoln
During the Civil War, New York’s mayor called for the city to secede from the Union. According to Barbara Maranzani at History, New York had deep business connections with the South. Many in the city, particularly working-class citizens, started to see the war as only for New York’s elite. Maranzani calls it the “rich man’s war, poor man’s battle.”
His name was Fernando Wood. And he was the segregationist mayor of New York during the Civil War.
This was a horrifying conundrum to me. New York is the biggest city in the North, let alone the country. And the mayor of New York was a segregationist? Wood was not only an opponent to Lincoln during the Civil War. In the Steven Spielberg movie, Lincoln, Wood was one…
