Civil War, Support For The Confederacy
Fernando Wood served a second mayoral term in 1860-1862. Wood was one of many New York Democrats sympathetic to the Confederacy, called 'Copperheads' by the staunch Unionists. During his second mayoral term in January 1861, Wood suggested to the New York City Council that New York secede and declare itself a free city, to continue its profitable cotton trade with the Confederacy.
Wood's Democratic machine was concerned to maintain the revenues (which depended on Southern cotton) that maintained the patronage. Wood's suggestion was greeted with derision by the Common Council. Tammany Hall was highly factionalized until after the Civil War. Wood headed his own organization named Mozart Hall, not Tammany Hall. New York City commercial interests wanted to retain their relations with the South, but within the framework of the Constitution.
Wood's brother Benjamin Wood purchased the New York Daily News (not to be confused with the current New York Daily News, which was founded in 1919), supporting Stephen A. Douglas, and was elected to Congress, where he made a name as an opponent of pursuing the American Civil War.
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