Interesting that as a history buff, I did not know that New York City had talked about secession during the Civil War. As the article talks about, it would have greatly crippled the North because of the huge loss of tax revenue from New York City. Certainly provides some interesting historical what if’s, if New York City had gone had with secession.
In the wake of South Carolina’s vote to secession in late December 1860, Americans both North and South anxiously wondered which state would be next to leave the Union. Little did they realize that the next call for secession would come not from a Southern state, but from a Northern city — New York City.
What’s more, pro-Southern and pro-independence sentiment was widespread in New York, particularly among the merchant class. Their pro-independence stance was partly a matter of economic opportunism: New York was not only the richest and most populous city in the country, but it was also the critical source of federal tax revenue in these days before income taxes.