“Whatever your mother believes,” Frank had explained to young Tom, “the truth is that people in the North are against slavery on principle, but they’re not that excited about it. Lincoln can include the slavery issue on his platform, but he knows he can’t win on it.” As the elections of 1860 had drawn near, “Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men” was the Republican motto. Hard-working Northerners, supported by the government, should take over the western lands, build railways and develop industries, while the men of the South, morally inferior through their support for slavery, would be left behind. “He’s offering free land and government aid,” Frank had remarked drily. “A pretty good inducement for doing right.”

The election had been close, but Lincoln had squeaked in. Upstate New York had voted Republican. But not the people of Democratic New York City—they’d voted Lincoln down.

For whatever ticket Lincoln ran on, he was going to cause trouble with the South. And if the wealth of the merchants depended on the South, so did the jobs of every working man. Tammany Hall knew it. Mayor Fernando Wood knew it, and said so loudly. If Lincoln wanted to put the city’s jobs at risk, he declared, to hell with him.

The working men of New York weren’t too sure how they felt about the Republicans in general, either. Republican free farmers, with their notions of individual effort and self-help, were no friends to the working men’s unions, whose only bargaining power lay in their numbers. Working men suspected something else too. “If Lincoln has his way, there’ll be millions of free blacks—who’ll work for pence—headed north to steal our jobs. No thank you.”

Hetty Master was disgusted with this attitude. Frank thought it understandable. He was also proved right in his fears about the secession.

On December 20, 1860, South Carolina had left the Union. One after another, the states of the Deep South had followed. By February 1861, they were forming a Confederacy and had chosen a president of their own. Other Southern states were holding back from such a drastic step. But the secession states now saw an interesting opportunity. “If the Union’s breaking up,” they declared, “we can refuse to pay all the debts we owe to the rich boys in New York.” Delegations of merchants, both Democrat and Republican, went down from New York to Washington, anxious to find a compromise. Lincoln passed through the city, but satisfied no one.

It was Mayor Fernando Wood, however, who issued New York’s most striking threat. If Lincoln wanted war with the South, and the ruination of the city, then New York should consider another option.

“We should secede from the Union ourselves,” he announced.

“New York City leave the United States? Is he mad?” cried Hetty.

“Not entirely,” said Frank.