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Prompted by a comment that @David T made in another thread.

So, in early 1861, NYC Mayor Fernando Wood, a noted Copperhead, proposed that the city should secede from the United States and declare itself a free city in order to maintain trade relations with the Southern states. While IOTL this never went anywhere... what if Wood had been successful in convincing the city council to secede? Assume that, in other respects, this is a standard early CSA victory scenario (the South wins several important early battles, the British and French intervene to broker a peace, etc), because I can't imagine New York City maintaining independence otherwise.

Anyway, what would be the political, social, and economic ramifications of an independent New York City in the 1800s - not only for the city itself, although that would certainly be fascinating, but also for the United States, who would have just lost not only the Southern states, but the largest city in the country.
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