As a resident living in New Jersey…

DO YOU SUPPORT THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY?

Slavery was not a side show Slavery was not a side show in America; it was the main in America; it was the main event. event. James HortonJames Horton

Team #1 - 1861 The Free Laborer - James Laroe

As a free laborer working in a cotton mill in NJ, do I support the abolition of slavery or the right of the Southern states to continue to use slaves as house servants and agricultural workers?

Discuss the documents and video clips in the following slides in developing your team’s position.

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As a free African American working in a NJ cotton mill, will you risk your life and freedom to speak out against slavery?

Team #2 The Free African American Worker

Anne Johnson

Discuss the documents in the following slides in developing your team’s position.

As a local business leader in NJ employing African Americans in a cotton mill, will you build a new”factory” in New York City when it secedes?

Team #3 The Business Leader - Henry Prall

Discuss the documents in the following slides in developing your team’s position.

As a local political leader in NJ you need to take a stand on the right of states to determine the legality of slavery.

Team #4 The Political Leader - Gov. Charles Olden

Discuss the documents in the following slides in developing your team’s position.

Team #1 - 1861 The Free Laborer – James Laroe

As a free laborer working in a cotton mill in NJ, do I support the abolition of slavery or the right of the Southern states to continue to use slaves as house servants and agricultural workers?

Discuss the documents and video clips in the following slides in developing your team’s position.

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http://caho.columbia.edu/eseminars/0754/web/s1/index.html

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How did the Missouri Compromise lead to the expansion of slavery?

http://caho.columbia.edu/eseminars/0754/web/s2/index.html

How did the view of slavery change from being part of God’s plan to that of a sin?

Team #1

“Slaves obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but like slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men, because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free.

And masters, treat your slaves the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both Lord and master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him.” (Ephesians 6:5-9)

Team 1

Team #1 Election Results 1860

Slavery a Positive Good

Primary source: John C. Calhoun, "Slavery a Positive Good," speech to U.S. Senate, 1837.

However sound the great body of the non-slaveholding States are at present, in the course of a few years they will be succeeded by those who will have been taught to hate the people and institutions of nearly one-half of this Union, with a hatred more deadly than one hostile nation ever entertained towards another. It is easy to see the end. By the necessary course of events, if left to themselves, we must become, finally, two people. It is impossible under the deadly hatred which must spring up between the two great nations, if the present causes are permitted to operate unchecked, that we should continue under the same political system. The conflicting elements would burst the Union asunder, powerful as are the links which hold it together. Abolition and the Union cannot coexist. As the friend of the Union I openly proclaim it,- and the sooner it is known the better. The former may now be controlled, but in a short time it will be beyond the power of man to arrest the course of events. We of the South will not, cannot, surrender our institutions. To maintain the existing relations between the two races, inhabiting that section of the Union, is indispensable to the peace and happiness of both. It cannot be subverted without drenching the country or the other of the races. . . . But let me not be understood as admitting, even by implication, that the existing relations between the two races in the slaveholding States is an evil: - far otherwise; I hold it to be a good, as it has thus far proved itself to be to both, and will continue to prove so if not disturbed by the fell spirit of abolition. I appeal to facts. Never before has the black race of Central Africa, from the dawn of history to the present day, attained a condition so civilized and so improved, not only physically, but morally and intellectually….

I hold then, that there never has yet existed a wealthy and civilized society in which one portion of the community did not, in point of fact, live on the labor of the other. Broad and general as is this assertion, it is fully borne out by history. . . . 

John C. Calhoun, "Speech on Slavery," U.S. Senate, Congressional Globe, 24th Congress, 2nd Sess (Feb. 6, 1837), 157–59.

Team #1

DURING the first years of my service in Dr. Flint's family, I was accustomed to share some indulgences with the children of my mistress. Though this seemed to me no more than right, I was grateful for it, and tried to merit the kindness by the faithful discharge of my duties. But I now entered on my fifteenth year--a sad epoch in the life of a slave girl. My master began to whisper foul words in my ear. Young as I was, I could not remain ignorant of their import. I tried to treat them with indifference or contempt. The master's age, my extreme youth, and the fear that his conduct would be reported to my grandmother, made him bear this treatment for many months. He was a crafty man, and resorted to many means to accomplish his purposes. Sometimes he had stormy, terrific ways, that made his victims tremble; sometimes he assumed a gentleness that he thought must surely subdue. Of the two, I preferred his stormy moods, although they left me trembling. He tried his utmost to corrupt the pure principles my grandmother had instilled. He peopled my young mind with unclean images, such as only a vile monster could think of. I turned from him with disgust and hatred. But he was my master. I was compelled to live under the same roof with him--where I saw a man forty years my senior daily violating the most sacred commandments of nature. He told me I was his property; that I must be subject to his will in all things. My soul revolted against the mean tyranny. But where could I turn for protection? No matter whether the slave girl be as black as ebony or as fair as her mistress. In either case, there is no shadow of law to protect her from insult, from violence, or even from death; all these are inflicted by fiends who bear the shape of men. The mistress, who ought to protect the helpless victim, has no other feelings towards her but those of jealousy and rage. Harriett Jacobs

Harriet Jacobs Team #1

Assenting to the "self-evident truth" maintained in the American Declaration of Independence, "that all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights — among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," I shall strenuously contend for the immediate enfranchisement of our slave population. In Park-street Church, on the Fourth of July, 1829, in an address on slavery, I unreflectingly assented to the popular but pernicious doctrine of gradual abolition. I seize this opportunity to make a full and unequivocal recantation, and thus publicly to ask pardon of my God, of my country, and of my brethren the poor slaves, for having uttered a sentiment so full of timidity, injustice and absurdity.

William Lloyd Garrison, Jan. 1831

Team #1

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Wage Slavery Historian Margaret Washington Discusses Wage Slavery

When northerners criticized southerners for owning enslaved people, southern intellectuals had an answer for them. They had developed an entire philosophy and the most significant component of this was a man named George Fitzhugh. And Fitzhugh's argument with something like this, an enslaved person was, from the time that they were born until the time that they died were taken care of. When they were young they didn't have to work, and yet they were fed. When they were older, although they labored, they had food provided for them, they had shelter, they had clothing. When they were ill they were taken care of. When they were old and decrepit they were taken care of. So the system, even though the system extracted labor from them, the system took care of them throughout their lives.In the North, Fitzhugh argued, on the contrary. A northern worker was employed as a child, so they experienced child labor. They were not paid for their livelihood at a descent wage. They were also not paid for their rent. They were not given food. They had to take all of the money that they got from their labor and use that for livelihood which the slaves did not.

Team #1 QuickTime™ and aTIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor

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As a free African American working in a NJ cotton mill, will you risk your life and freedom to speak out against slavery?

Team #2 The Free African American Worker Anne Johnson

Discuss the documents in the following slides in developing your team’s position.

Aunt Hester had not only disobeyed his orders in going out, but had been found in company with Lloyd's Ned; which circumstance, I found, from what he said while whipping her, was the chief offence. Had he been a man of pure morals himself, he might have been thought interested in protecting the innocence of my aunt; but those who knew him will not suspect him of any such virtue. Before he commenced whipping Aunt Hester, he took her into the kitchen, and stripped her from neck to waist, leaving her neck, shoulders, and back, entirely naked. He then told her to cross her hands, calling her at the same time a d——d b—-h. After crossing her hands, he tied them with a strong rope, and led her to a stool under a large hook in the joist, put in for the purpose. He made her get upon the stool, and tied her hands to the hook. She now stood fair for his infernal purpose. Her arms were stretched up at their full length, so that she stood upon the ends of her toes. He then said to her, "Now, you d——d b—-h, I'll learn you how to disobey my orders!" and after rolling up his sleeves, he commenced to lay on the heavy cowskin, and soon the warm, red blood (amid heart-rending shrieks from her, and horrid oaths from him) came dripping to the floor. I was so terrified and horror-stricken at the sight, that I hid myself in a closet, and dared not venture out till long after the bloody transaction was over. I expected it would be my turn next. It was all new to me. I had never seen any thing like it before.

Frederick Douglass. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself, (Boston: Anti-Slavery Office, 1845);

Team #2 The Freed Slave

My subject, then, fellow-citizens, is American slavery. I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slave's point of view. Standing there identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July! Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the constitution and the Bible which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery the great sin and shame of America! "I will not equivocate; I will not excuse"; I will use the severest language I can command; and yet not one word shall escape me that any man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a slaveholder, shall not confess to be right and just.

Frederick Douglass. The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro. July 5, 1852.

Team #2

Team #2

Would you support the Would you support the Underground Railroad?Underground Railroad?

http://www.phillyburbs.com/undergroundrailroad/NJroutes.shtml

Lynchburg in Campbell County. Mah pappy was a slave befo' me, and mah mammy, too. His name was George Washington Tolah, and her'n was Lucy Tolah. We took ouah name from ouah ownah, and we lived in a cabin way back of the big house, me and mah pappy and mammy and two brothahs.

"They nevah mistreated me, neithah. They's a whipping the slaves all the time, but ah run away all the time. And I jus' tell them - if they whipped me, ah'd kill 'em, and ah nevah did get a whippin'. If ah thought one was comin' to me, Ah'd hide in the woods; then they'd send aftah me and they say, 'Come, on back, - we won't whip you'. But they killed some of the niggahs, whipped 'em to death. Ah guess they killed three or fo' on Tolah's place while ah was there.

"Ah never went to school. Learned to read and write my name after ah was free in night school, but they nevah allowed us to have a book in ouah hand, and we couldn't have no money neither. If we had money we had to tu'n it ovah to ouah ownah. Chu'ch was not allowed in ouah pa't neithah. Ah go to the Meth'dist Chu'ch now, everybody ought to go. I think RELIGION MUST BE FINE, 'CAUSE GOD ALMIGHTY'S AT THE HEAD OF IT."

Richard Toler, Cincinnati, OhioTeam #2

DURING the first years of my service in Dr. Flint's family, I was accustomed to share some indulgences with the children of my mistress. Though this seemed to me no more than right, I was grateful for it, and tried to merit the kindness by the faithful discharge of my duties. But I now entered on my fifteenth year--a sad epoch in the life of a slave girl. My master began to whisper foul words in my ear. Young as I was, I could not remain ignorant of their import. I tried to treat them with indifference or contempt. The master's age, my extreme youth, and the fear that his conduct would be reported to my grandmother, made him bear this treatment for many months. He was a crafty man, and resorted to many means to accomplish his purposes. Sometimes he had stormy, terrific ways, that made his victims tremble; sometimes he assumed a gentleness that he thought must surely subdue. Of the two, I preferred his stormy moods, although they left me trembling. He tried his utmost to corrupt the pure principles my grandmother had instilled. He peopled my young mind with unclean images, such as only a vile monster could think of. I turned from him with disgust and hatred. But he was my master. I was compelled to live under the same roof with him--where I saw a man forty years my senior daily violating the most sacred commandments of nature. He told me I was his property; that I must be subject to his will in all things. My soul revolted against the mean tyranny. But where could I turn for protection? No matter whether the slave girl be as black as ebony or as fair as her mistress. In either case, there is no shadow of law to protect her from insult, from violence, or even from death; all these are inflicted by fiends who bear the shape of men. The mistress, who ought to protect the helpless victim, has no other feelings towards her but those of jealousy and rage. Harriett Jacobs

Harriet Jacobs Team #2

How I dreaded my master now! Every minute I expected to be summoned to his presence; but the day passed, and I heard nothing from him. The next morning, a message was brought to me: "Master wants you in his study." I found the door ajar, and I stood a moment gazing at the hateful man who claimed a right to rule me, body and soul. I entered, and tried to appear calm. I did not want him to know how my heart was bleeding. He looked fixedly at me, with an expression which seemed to say, “I have half a mind to kill you on the spot." At last he broke the silence, and that was a relief to both of us.

"So you want to be married, do you?" said he, "and to a free nigger."

"Yes, sir.

"Do you love this nigger?" said he, abruptly.

"Yes, sir."

"How dare you tell me so!" he exclaimed, in great wrath. After a slight pause, he added, "I supposed you thought more of yourself; that you felt above the insults of such puppies. "

I replied, "If he is a puppy I am a puppy, for we are both of the negro race. It is right and honorable for us to love each other. The man you call a puppy never insulted me, sir; and he would not love me if he did not believe me to be a virtuous woman."

He sprang upon me like a tiger, and gave me a stunning blow. It was the first time he had ever struck me; and fear did not enable me to control my anger. When I had recovered a little from the effects, I exclaimed, "You have struck me for answering you honestly. How I despise you!"

Harriet Jacobs Team #2

A communication by email from Scott D. Peters, Research Director/Archivist, Ocean County Historical Society:

Dr. Rosencranz(sic) earned $538...that translates, roughly, to $1.75 a day.  At the time, the Trade Unions were demanding a $2 a day wage for skilled labor....Since a typical work week was 6 days, that translates into $12 a week x 52 weeks = $624 per year....At the same time...James P. Smith, Manager of Howell Works...was likely earning between $1500 and $2500 per year.  Compared to the average journeyman mechanic...who earned a more typical $1.25 to $1.50 per day, Dr. Rosencranz’s income is about equal to a trades foreman.  Other figures for Monmouth County during the period 1830-1850 show average wages for unskilled and basic farm laborers to range from $0.35 to $1.00 and skilled labor from $0.75 to $1.50....

Team #2

Charick Rosencrantz, age 35

Marianne Rosencrantz, age 35

Jane Rosengrant, age 18

Thomas, age 24

Benjamin, age 22

John, age 2

Nancy Kipp

Anne Johnson

Fanny Johnson

http://www.thehermitage.org/rosencrantz_text.html - 15

Team #2 African Americans at The HermitageAfrican Americans at The Hermitage

Listen to the story of Katie Darlinghttp://www.slaveryinamerica.org/narratives/nar_kdarling.htm

As a local business leader in NJ employing African Americans in a cotton mill, will you build a new”factory” in New York City when it secedes?

Team #3 The Business Leader – Henry Prall

Discuss the documents in the following slides in developing your team’s position.

VI.3 Slavery: A Business Necessity

Now let's look at it from the New York perspective. When an abolitionist was going to speak in New York or Boston or Philadelphia, there often would be a riot, because these people were troublemakers. They were going to shake up the status quo. They wanted to change the whole economy. They wanted to free the slaves anywhere and everywhere, and right away. One New York businessman before the Civil War told an abolitionist, and it's a very revealing quote, "We are not such fools as not to know that slavery is a great evil, a great wrong, but the founders of our republic consented to it. A great portion of the property of the Southerners is invested under its sanction, and the business of the North as well as the South has become adjusted to slavery. There are millions upon millions of dollars due from Southerners to the merchants and mechanics of this city alone, the payment of which would be jeopardized by any rupture between the North and the South. We can not afford, sir, to let you and your associates succeed in your endeavor to overthrow slavery. It is not a matter of principle with us, it is a matter of business necessity. We mean, sir, to put you abolitionists down by fair means if we can, by foul means if we must."

Now that's a very revealing comment, and let's think about what he says in the middle of that quote, which is nasty in the extreme. He says, "There are millions upon millions of dollars due from Southerners to the merchants and mechanics of this city alone, the payment of which would be jeopardized by any rupture." That speaks to the heart of it. It was not a moral issue. It was a financial issue. New York then, as now, was a creditor city. Farmers are mostly debtors, they owe money to other people. New York is a financial and business center, that means not only does it have its big banks that lend money out, but its merchants let's say are selling a boatload of shoes to New Orleans or Mobile. Then, as now, you don't pay for the shoes until you get them, often sixty or ninety days later, it's called sixty– or ninety–day paper. So there's a delay in payment. So New Yorkers extended credit and were creditors.

Team #3

Table 1: U.S. Production of All Types of Raw Cotton, 1790-1860

Year Pounds1790 1,567,0001800 36,572,5001805 73,145,0001810 88,819,0001820 167,189,0001830 365,726,0001840 673,116,0001845 902,111,5001850 1,066,925,5001855 1,608,708,5001860 1,918,701,000

*Source: Adapted from Table 2 in William H. Phillips, Cotton Gin, EH.Net Encyclopedia

Team #3

VI.2 Bitter Rivals

But when we think about the Civil War, realize that New York was driven less by a principle and more by the desire to keep things going as they had been. So when South Carolina decides to secede from the United States, followed by ultimately ten other states, the Mayor of the City of New York, Fernando Wood, suggests that New York secede from the United States too. The Mayor, and many prominent businessmen suggest this not to become part of the Confederacy but to become a free and independent city that could trade with both the Union and the Confederacy.

Now why would he do this? Well, first of all you need to think about New York's connections to the rest of the country and its dominance of the carrying trade. As New York grew and prospered in the first half of the 19th Century, many people were bitter about it.

Let me quote from a Norfolk, Virginia newspaper, The Norfolk Beacon, in the middle of the 1830s, complaining about the very growth and prosperity of New York. "Instead of being what its geographical position entitles it to be, the great southern seaport, Norfolk is reduced to the humiliating condition of waiting on the pampered aristocracy of New York. In other days Norfolk was a large exporting and importing port, but now, since the concentration of capital in New York, Norfolk has become a hewer of wood and drawer of water to the lordly merchants of the northern city. New York imports for the whole South and we, the consumers, not only pay the duty but the commissions of her merchants, like the freight and insurance on the trans–shipment coastwise. Without foreign commerce Norfolk must dwindle to a village, and Virginia sink to the lowest scale in the union, while New York, vampire–like is sucking her blood to the last drop." Well, that tells us one thing, New Yorkers were serious about money.

Team #3

Team #3 Slavery a Positive Good

Primary source: John C. Calhoun, "Slavery a Positive Good," speech to U.S. Senate, 1837.

However sound the great body of the non-slaveholding States are at present, in the course of a few years they will be succeeded by those who will have been taught to hate the people and institutions of nearly one-half of this Union, with a hatred more deadly than one hostile nation ever entertained towards another. It is easy to see the end. By the necessary course of events, if left to themselves, we must become, finally, two people. It is impossible under the deadly hatred which must spring up between the two great nations, if the present causes are permitted to operate unchecked, that we should continue under the same political system. The conflicting elements would burst the Union asunder, powerful as are the links which hold it together. Abolition and the Union cannot coexist. As the friend of the Union I openly proclaim it,- and the sooner it is known the better. The former may now be controlled, but in a short time it will be beyond the power of man to arrest the course of events. We of the South will not, cannot, surrender our institutions. To maintain the existing relations between the two races, inhabiting that section of the Union, is indispensable to the peace and happiness of both. It cannot be subverted without drenching the country or the other of the races. . . . But let me not be understood as admitting, even by implication, that the existing relations between the two races in the slaveholding States is an evil: - far otherwise; I hold it to be a good, as it has thus far proved itself to be to both, and will continue to prove so if not disturbed by the fell spirit of abolition. I appeal to facts. Never before has the black race of Central Africa, from the dawn of history to the present day, attained a condition so civilized and so improved, not only physically, but morally and intellectually….

I hold then, that there never has yet existed a wealthy and civilized society in which one portion of the community did not, in point of fact, live on the labor of the other. Broad and general as is this assertion, it is fully borne out by history. . . . 

John C. Calhoun, "Speech on Slavery," U.S. Senate, Congressional Globe, 24th Congress, 2nd Sess (Feb. 6, 1837), 157–59.

Mayor Wood’s Recommendation of the Secession of New York City

Mayor Wood January 6, 1861

To the Honorable the Common Council:

GENTLEMEN: We are entering upon the public duties of the year under circumstances as unprecedented as they are gloomy and painful to contemplate. The great trading and producing interests of not only the city of New York, but of the entire country, are prostrated by a monetary crisis; and although similar calamities have before befallen us, it is the first time that they have emanated from causes having no other origin than that which may be traced to political disturbances….

Much, no doubt, can be said in favor of the justice and policy of a separation. It may be said that secession or revolution in any of the United States would be subversive of all Federal authority, and, so far as the Central Government is concerned, the resolving of the community into its original elements – that, if part of the States form new combinations and Governments, other States may do the same. California and her sisters of the Pacific will no doubt set up an independent Republic and husband their own rich mineral resources. The Western States, equally rich in cereals and other agricultural products, will probably do the same. Then it may be said, 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.

Team #3

Pro Slavery Images

Why are these images considered to support slavery?

http://www.caho.columbia.edu/ps/10159.html

Team #3

As a local political leader in NJ you need to take a stand on the right of states to determine the legality of slavery.

Team #4 The Political Leader – Gov. Charles Olden

Discuss the documents in the following slides in developing your team’s position.

New Jersey, like other northern states, replaced outright slavery with stricter controls of free blacks. Black voters were disenfranchsed by an 1807 state law that limited the franchise to "free, white male" citizens.

In 1830, of the 3,568 Northern blacks who remained slaves, more than two-thirds were in New Jersey. The institution was rapidly declining in the 1830s, but not until 1846 was slavery permanently abolished. At the start of the Civil War, New Jersey citizens owned 18 "apprentices for life" (the federal census listed them as "slaves") -- legal slaves by any name.

"New Jersey's emancipation law carefully protected existing property rights. No one lost a single slave, and the right to the services of young Negroes was fully protected. Moreover, the courts ruled that the right was a 'species of property,' transferable 'from one citizen to another like other personal property.' "[10] Thus "New Jersey retained slaveholding without technically remaining a slave state."[11]

Nancy Shakir. http://www.slavenorth.com/slavenorth.htm

Team #4 Local Political Leader

*********************

FOR SALE A Negro Woman, about 35 years old, healthy, sober and honest, and understands all kinds of housework, will be sold with or withouther child, a boy of two years old. ********************This advertisement, in a Trenton newspaper on December notices appearing in periodicals all over New Jersey during the early 19th century. It was no rare occurrence to have slave mothers separated from their children.  By 1826, New Jersey passed legislation that authorized the return of fugitive slaves to their owners from other states residing or apprehended in New Jersey. In 1846, New Jersey set down into law its second abolition law. This law would now eliminate apprenticeships for all black children born after its passage and although formally outlawing slavery, makes the states remaining slaves (all of then elderly persons) "apprentices" for like, which is another form of slavery.

Team #4

Table 1: U.S. Production of All Types of Raw Cotton, 1790-1860

Year Pounds1790 1,567,0001800 36,572,5001805 73,145,0001810 88,819,0001820 167,189,0001830 365,726,0001840 673,116,0001845 902,111,5001850 1,066,925,5001855 1,608,708,5001860 1,918,701,000

*Source: Adapted from Table 2 in William H. Phillips, Cotton Gin, EH.Net Encyclopedia

Team #4

“In his inaugural address on January 17, 1860, Governor Olden said each state had the “exclusive independent control of its domestic policy” and that slavery was exclusively and eminently a matter of domestic policy, to be …controlled by each state for itself.”

Gov. Charles Smith OldenGov. Charles Smith Olden

Jan. 15, 1860 - Jan. 20, 1863Jan. 15, 1860 - Jan. 20, 1863

Team #4

Table 3: Population of the South 1790-1860

Year Free White Population Slave Population1790 1,240,454 654,1211800 1,691,892 851,5321810 2,118,144 1,103,7001820 2,867,454 1,509,9041830 3,614,600 1,983,8601840 4,601,873 2,481,3901850 6,184,477 3,200,3641860 8,036,700 3,950,511

*Source: Historical Statistics of the United States (1970)

Team #4

Mayor Wood’s Recommendation of the Secession of New York City

Mayor Wood January 6, 1861

To the Honorable the Common Council:

GENTLEMEN: We are entering upon the public duties of the year under circumstances as unprecedented as they are gloomy and painful to contemplate. The great trading and producing interests of not only the city of New York, but of the entire country, are prostrated by a monetary crisis; and although similar calamities have before befallen us, it is the first time that they have emanated from causes having no other origin than that which may be traced to political disturbances….

Much, no doubt, can be said in favor of the justice and policy of a separation. It may be said that secession or revolution in any of the United States would be subversive of all Federal authority, and, so far as the Central Government is concerned, the resolving of the community into its original elements – that, if part of the States form new combinations and Governments, other States may do the same. California and her sisters of the Pacific will no doubt set up an independent Republic and husband their own rich mineral resources. The Western States, equally rich in cereals and other agricultural products, will probably do the same. Then it may be said, 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.

Team #4