United States in successive years. To prove the controlling influence exercised over immigration by material misery, on the one hand, and political oppression, on the other, a few statistical will suffice.
While, in 1826, of 10,837 immigrants 7,709 came from the Social and political causes influencing Irish and German immigrationUnited Kingdom, in 1827 their number increased to 11,952 out of 18,875, and in 1828 to 17,840 of a total of 27,283; but in 1829 their number fell to 10,594 of 22,530, and in 1830 to 3,874 of 23,322 souls. These fluctuations were due to the great commercial panic of 1826, and the distress in the manufacturing districts of England, as well as the famine in Ireland, which drove thousands from their homes who, under ordinary circumstances, would never have thought of emigration.
Again, in Germany, where the abortive revolutionary movement of 1830-1833, the brutal political persecutions by the several state governments, and the reactionary policy of the federal diet, as well as a general distrust of the future, produced an unusually large emigration: In 1831, only 2,395 Germans had arrived in the United States; in 1832, 10,168; in 1833, 6,823; and in 1834 to 1837, the years of the greatest political depression, 17,654, 8,245, 20,139, and 23,036 respectively.
The emigration from Ireland, which from 1844 rose much Greatest Irish immigrationbeyond its former proportions, reached its culminating point after the great famine of 1846. During the decade of 1845 to 1854, inclusive, in which period the highest figures ever known in the history of emigration to the United States were reached, 1,512,100 Irish left the United Kingdom. In the first half of that decade, viz., from January 1, 1845, to December 31, 1849, 607,241 went to the United States, and in the last half, viz., from January 1, 1850, to December 31, 1854, as many as 904,859 arrived in this country. With this unprecedentedly large emigration Ireland had exhausted herself. Since 1855 her quota has fallen off to less than one-half of the average of the preceding ten years.
Almost coincident, in point of time, with this mighty exodus from Ireland was the colossal emigration from Germany which followed the failure of the political revolutions attempted in 1848 and 1849. Already in 1845 and the following years the