"Boss" Tweed : the story of a grim generation / by Denis Tilden Lynch.

226 "Boss" Tweed
squarely in the face, and meet it calmly and bravely. As dreadful
as the severing of the bonds that have hitherto united the States
has been in contemplation, it is now an inevitable fact. We have
now to meet it, whatever the consequences may be. If the Union
is broken up, the government is dissolved, and it behooves every
distinct community as well as individual to take care of themselves.
"When disunion has become a fixed and certain fact why may
not New York disrupt the bonds which bind her to a venal and
corrupt master-to a people and a party that have plundered her
revenues, attempted to ruin her commerce, taken away the power of
self-government, and destroyed the union of which she was the
proud Empire City?"
This amazing proposal made Wood the lion of the town.
Wood now believed that his Mozart Hall Democracy was
invincible. Tammany would have to capitulate to him. And
this thought was shared by many of the leaders in the organization which had outlawed Wood. From all parts of the North,
Wood received letters of praise from leading Democrats.
Tweed and a number of the Tammany leaders were worried
over Wood's rise in popular esteem. Some, especially the
Union stalwarts, were for attacking Wood as a traitor. Tweed,
politically wise, counseled silence. Election Day was many
months off and much could happen in that time. Give him
plenty of rope and he would hang himself. All were for the
hanging as they accepted Tweed's advice.
The spirit of repression was growing. The North, which
had listened with respect to the Abolitionists, now began to
treat them as enemies of peace. Even Boston felt the swing
of the pendulum. The Herald, on January 17, 1861, observes on the editorial page:
"What are we coming to? Henry Ward Beecher is egged at
New Haven and sworn at in Philadelphia; Wendell Phillips cannot
speak unprotected in Boston; H. Ford Douglas, agent of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society is hooted out of Lancaster, Mass.;
and Susan B. Anthony is mobbed at Rochester, and can't for any
consideration obtain a hall in Albany."

This was the negative expression of the Southern sym