New York is a wonderful place, our favorite on the planet, but it has had its moments of ignominy. We spent a bit of time over the past few days reading about the draft riots of 1863, still the bloodiest urban unrest in American history. It seems that at least some New Yorkers didn’t want to report for conscription into the Grand Army of the Republic, despite the fact that it was on one of the great moral crusades in American history, the war to abolish slavery.

We had gone to the books to read about this chapter in the history of the city as we were thinking about the prospect that the Council of the City of New York, sitting only yards from Ground Zero, is preparing to pass a resolution against the war in Iraq. The wording of this resolution has been much wrestled over, particularly in the wake of the jibe by one of the resolution’s supporters, Councilman Robert Jackson, against the Jewish community.

“New York City is the home away from home for most Jews,” Mr. Jackson complained on WNYC radio.” And this is seen by many members of the Jewish community as a resolution that will go against Bush and, in the long run, will not be in the best interests of the State of Israel.” There have since been attempts to explain away the remark, but it was the old dual loyalty canard being raised right here in New York. It could have come straight from Patrick Buchanan.

Mr. Jackson is not alone. In the run up to the vote tomorrow, it has become increasingly apparent that a significant segment of the Council is for a course of appeasement. Some backers of the resolution may be of decent intent. But they are prepared to put the legislature of the city on record, at a crucial moment, as being against the war. There’s all sorts of compromise language being worked on, but that’s the nub of it. The president of America is backed by two bipartisan congressional war resolutions giving him authority to exercise his judgment, and the City Council of the leading city in the land wants to go on record as demurring.

There will be some shining moments. Young Peter Vallone of Queens is speaking with his typical bluntness, calling the resolution a “joke.” Another council member from Queens, Melinda Katz, was quoted by the New York Times this week as saying she would vote against the resolution. “It’s the wrong direction to try to tie the hands of United States,” she said. “And I have grave doubts about leaving our destiny in the hands of the United Nations Security Council, where France and some of the other countries have made it clear that they don’t want any type of pre-emptive strike or sole behavior that helps us to protect ourselves.”

To such members, who intend to vote against the resolution though they risk being recorded in the minority, one can offer this thought. There is no doubt how they will be remembered in the history books. On the eve of the War Between the States, the city was crawling with compromisers and cowards and plain old-fashioned pro-slavery types. There were newspapers that supported the South, or at least were prepared to treat with the secessionists. They wanted negotiations and compromise in the hope of avoiding war. History honored those who remembered America’s founding principles, who understood that there are times when war has its own moral imperative, and who were prepared to risk all of New York’s wealth on the proposition that a military victory was the right goal.