“so it is entirely possible he wanted to convince this constituency that the war had a noble purpose.”
Yes. The riots were set off byi the notion that the war was being fought to free the slaves rather than to keep the Union together.
Apparently lots of New Yorkers thought that fighting to preserve the Union was worth doing, but fighting to free the slaves was not.
Wow, that thread is so old I actually don’t even remember reading it (or posting on it) the first time.