German Political Refugees in the United States During the Period from 1815— 1860
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ETEROVICH LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER / 0-754 REPRINT SAN FRANCISCO CALIFORNIA 1970 German Political Refugees In the United States during the Period from 1815— 1860. By Ernest Bruncken. CHAPTER I. developing of the American people. This class is that of the political exiles, com- Introduction. prising not only those who were com- The population of the five states devel- pelled to leave their native land to escape oped out of the old territory northwest punishment for political offenses, but also of the Ohio, and in a less degree of many many who voluntarily expatriated them- other states in all sections of the Union, selves on account of dissatisfaction with contains a very large element of German the political conditions prevailing at birth or recent descent. The admixture home. of this Teutonic element differs in im- The political refugees were mostly men portance in the different states, as well as of considerable intelligence and educa- in different portions of each state. Sta- tion, of enthusiastic and energetic tem- tistics, which of necessity show only the peraments, and, moreover, men with bare numbers of those immigrated from ideals to which they were ready to devote German countries, with their immediate their activities, as was proven by the fact descendants, are quite inadequate as a itself that they had risked their homes, basis for estimating the influence of this their possessions, and in many cases their element on the development and history liberty and^ lives in order to change the of these sections, for the reason that political condition of their country. Their many other factors besides numbers enter presence on this side of the Atlantic acted into the problem. Still, the census fig- on the inert mass of their countrymen in ures are of importance, and it will appear the United States like a leaven to give a that the three states which have the higher and more varied life. This effect largest proportion of Teutonic inhabit- was shown first within the body of the ants, to wit: Wisconsin, Ohio and Illi- German residents themselves. Soon the nois, show the strongest and most numer- new vigor began to exercise its influence ous traces of German influence. 1 on the other elements of population, espe- Among the German immigrants of cially in the field of politics. Particu- these states, who arrived in this country larly, when the slavery question became between the years 1815 and i860, there a burning issue, the re-alignment of par- was a class, small in proportion to the ties after the rise of Republicanism was total number of arrivals, but of peculiar determined to a considerable degree by importance to the understanding of the the refugees, who by that time had be- part played by the German element in the come the leaders of a great part of the *) An attempt at estimating1 the number of Germans and their descendants living in the United States is made by Theodore Poesche in Eickhoff’* “Aus der Neuen Heimath”, pfage 130. "Mr. Vbescne was ior many years statistican in the treasury department at Wash- ington, and is also a well-known writer on ethnologicical subjects, especially on account of his volume ^he Aryans”. (See also note 61.) From the table found in the place above men- tioned it appears among other things, that from 1820 to 1800, inclusive, the number of Germans who came to the United States was 1,186,376. 2 German voters. After the civil war, the Anglo-American and German parent during which many of the refugees dis- stocks, languished and withered long be- tinguished themselves both in the field fore they could come into flower and and the council chamber, their direct in- fruit. i fluence on public affairs gradually de- It would be a misapprehension of the clined. But during the short period of situation if one were to infer from this their ascendancy they modified pro- lack of direct and open influence that our foundly the life and attitude of the Ger- national development was in no wise man element, and thereby the character affected by the presence of so large a of the American people. Nor is it diffi- number of Germans. The mere com- cult to find their vestiges in the institu- mingling of races must of necessity have tions, social, political and religious, of a had its indirect and physiological effects. large portion of the United States. Moreover, in the economic condition of The German element in this country, the country, the German, and in particu- numerically strong thqugh it had been lar the German farmer, began at an from early colonial times, had not, exer- early date to teach by his example better cised a noticeable direct influence on the methods to his neighbor of different public life and institutions of the nation, stock. But these influences, exercised until the advent of the class which forms unconsciously, are hard to trace in detail, the subject of this essay. It was aptly and could not have prevented the Ger- compared by Friedrich Kapp to an army man element from disappearing without without officers. Almost without excep- leaving vestiges that history can record tion the German immigrants devoted with any degree of precision. It was themselves diligently and exclusively to not till the political refugees began to the bettering of their materiaj condition. furnish officers to the Teutonic host that They were largely sprang from the poor- the Germans began to play a perceptible est and most ignorant classes of the part in the struggles of American life. Fatherland. They had neither time, in- The time when this new class of immi- clination nor ability to concern them- grants first made their appearance was selves with affairs outside of their farms that of the restoration following the over, or workshops. Their descendants either throw of Napoleon. It coincides almost disappeared in the general mass of the exactly with the time when German life American people—disappeared so com- in this country was at its lowest ebb. pletely that in many cases not even their During the period from the Revolution- names remain to testify to their German ary War to the War of 1812, there was ancestry—or they kept apart from the but little immigration from Germany. As general current of the national life so en- a consequence the amalgamation of the tirely that they might as well have dwelt German residents made very rapid on another continent for all the influence progress. German churches adopted they had, directly, on the national growth English as the language of Divine serv- and character. It is true that where the ice ; German newspapers suspended or particularly strong, German element was were changed into English ones ; in many as notably in some portions of Pennsyl- neighborhoods where for almost a cen- - vania* tnere were not lacking ctre begin tury G erma t. had been the language of nings of activities not purely private and business and familiar conversation the economic. But these germs of intellect- younger generation preferred the English ual life, separated as they were from both tongue. But very soon after general 3 peace had followed the disturbances of changes in the character and attitude of the Napoleonic era, a new stream of im- the political emigration. As the year migration set in. Its character was at 1848 marks an epoch in the history of first very much like the older one. As Germany, so it did in that of the Ger- formerly, most of the immigrants were mans in this country. The most natural ignorant and poor. For at least another division of our subject will therefore be decade a large proportion of them came into the periods before and after 1848. as redemptioners, paying for their pas- We call these men political exiles. But sage by a period of what was practically nowhere can political movements be en- slavery. The cruel abuses and scandals tirely separated from religious and social did not connected with immigrant ships agitations, and least of all is this possible re- cease until after ocean steamers had in the case of the men we speak of. Few placed the slow sailing vessels. But soon political movements were ever So largely the character of immigration changed. determined by the religious and philo- the Beginning with the third decade of sophical tenets of its promoters as the century, an increasing number of well-to- movement for German unity and free- do country people came to take up the dom. To the Radicals who landed upon fertile agricultural lands of the west. It our shores liberty meant a great deal is not the purpose, at present, to write a more than merely a certain form of gov- history of German immigration, and con- ernment and a certain system of laws.