Читать книгу The American Jew as Patriot, Soldier and Citizen - Simon Wolf - Страница 31

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It is questionable whether the Jewish population of the American Union kept pace with the general increase during the time from the close of the Revolutionary struggle to the middle of the present century. Certain it is that at a comparatively developed period, in 1824, Solomon Etting estimated the Jewish population of Maryland as "at least 150," and that of the United States as "at least 6000,"[24] while another experienced publicist, Isaac Harby, estimates it, as we have seen, (note, page 12), at "not over 6000" in 1826. Up to the close of the Eighteenth Century the Jewish immigrants to this side of the Atlantic were derived almost entirely from the Sephardic stock, mainly indeed from England and Holland and their colonial dependencies, and these, from the comparative paucity of numbers at their source, could not, in the very nature of things, have been very numerous. Of the Jewish colonists of the time of the Revolution, some, who had remained loyal to the mother country, went back to England or to the West Indies after the war was over, and the number of these, though quite limited, was but little overbalanced by the new arrivals. The emigration of the German Jews remained altogether sporadic throughout the period of the Napoleonic wars, because of the almost insuperable obstacles which hindered their departure, and for a time thereafter they were content to remain at home in view of the great political concessions which they had gained from the German rulers in return for their valor and heroic sacrifices in defense of the fatherland. The increase of the Jewish population in this country was thus limited mainly to the surplus of births over deaths until some time after the close of the War of 1812. In the course of the reaction against the innovations of liberalism which ensued after 1820, the hardly-gained political rights of the German Jews were gradually curtailed or entirely withdrawn, and at this time the Jews of the German maritime cities began to emigrate to the United States in increasing numbers. It was not, however, until after the revolution of 1848 and the beginning of steam navigation on the Atlantic, that any considerable exodus took place. At the time of the Mexican War, in 1846, the Jewish population of the United States was probably not greater in proportion than that estimated for the period of the Revolutionary War. In point of fact, at the time of the second war with Great Britain, and likewise also at the date of the Mexican War, the Jewish element composed as yet only a minute fraction of the general population, and no very considerable number of Jewish names are to be looked for in the army lists of those two wars. At the same time it remains to be added that the lists here given for both the wars referred to are not at all complete, comprising for the most part only the names of such individuals as left notable evidence of their presence in the ranks.