Circa1865

New York City in 1712

[The population of New York City in 1741] “numbered only about ten thousand, one-fifth of which [were] negroes, who were slaves. Their education being wholly neglected, they were ignorant and debased, and addicted to almost every vice. They were besides, restive under their bondage and the severe punishments often inflicted upon them., which caused their master’s a great deal of anxiety.

Not isolated as an inland plantation, but packed in a narrow space, they had easy communication with each other and worse than all, with the reckless and depraved crews of the vessels that came into port.

It is true, the most stringent measures were adopted to prevent them from assembling together; yet, in spite of every precaution, there would now and again come to light some plan or project that would fill white New Yorkers with alarm. They felt half the time as though walking on the crust of a volcano, and hence were in a state of mind to exaggerate every danger and give credit to every sinister rumor.

Only thirty years before occurred such an outbreak as they now feared. On the 7^th of April 1712, the house of Peter Van Tilburgh was set on fire by negroes, which was evidently meant as a signal for a general revolt.

The cry of “fire” roused the neighboring inhabitants, and the rushed out toward the blazing building. They saw . . . in the red light of the flames, a band of negroes armed with guns and knives . . . who fired and then rushed on them with their knives, killing several on the spot. The rest, leaving the building to the mercy of the flames, ran to the fort on the Battery and roused the Governor who ordered a cannon to be fired from the ramparts to alarm the town. The soldiers hurried forward towards the fire while more negroes joined the rioters, who stood firm until the gleam of bayonets and a single musket volley forced them to flee toward what is now Wall Street.

The scattered white inhabitants the rioters encountered were attacked with their knives, killing and wounding several as the black mob made for the nearby woods and swamps. Some, finding themselves closely pressed and all avenues of escape closed off, deliberately shot themselves, preferring such a death to the one they knew awaited them. How many [colored] were killed and captured during the morning, the historian does not tell us. We can only infer that the number must have been great, from the statement he incidentally makes, that “during the day nineteen more were taken, tried and executed – some that turned State’s evidence were transported. Eight or ten whites had been murdered,” and many more wounded.

It was a terrible event and remembered by the present inhabitants with horror and dismay. Many middle-aged men, in 1741, were young men at the time and remembered the fearful excitement that prevailed then.”

(The Great Riots of New York: 1712 to 1873. Joel Tyler Headley. Dover Publications, pp. 26-28)

The outcome of “the war to end all wars” was punitive peace terms against Germany, the rise of German communism and the forced abdication of the Kaiser. This created a vacuum which was filled by a German nationalist intent upon retaliation for his country’s humiliation at Versailles. And so came another war.

Woodrow Wilson’s duplicity recalls Robert E. Lee’s late-1866 letter to Lord Acton: “I consider the consolidation of the States into one vast republic, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, to be the certain precursor to ruin which has overwhelmed all those that have preceded it.”

Wilson, it should be noted, won the presidency in 1912 in a three-way race with only 42% of the popular vote – 3% more than Lincoln accomplished in 1860.

Woodrow Wilson’s Great Race to War

“America believed itself to have declared war on Germany in April 1917 for noble reasons. To make the world safe for democracy, as the slogan went.

At bottom, however, the Allies had manipulated the American government with the same expertise they had shown from the start of the war. President Wilson, a Germaphobe long before 1914, was already predisposed to aid Great Britain. Although scrupulously neutral in public (Irish Americans being an important part of any Democratic politician’s constituency), in private he was unabashedly partisan. His administration did nothing to stop the Allies from borrowing large sums to finance their war efforts.

Loans were only one part of the complex pattern of aid extended before 1917. American manufacturers made war materials to Allied specifications and shipped them to Europe. To name two obvious examples: Winchester and Remington arms and ammunition, as well as Midvale Steel and Ordnance howitzers. In this and many other ways, the Allied armies of 1915 and 1916 were as heavily dependent on American war production as the Allied governments were on American cash.

Neither Allied apologists nor American defenders of President Wilson have been anxious to draw attention to the massive level of American support, since it invariably claimed that the US was provoked into going to war by German actions against American citizens.

From the German point of view, the issue was not if America would join with Great Britain, but when this would happen, and what effect it would have on the war. Could America get an army into the field before the Germans could win the war in the West outright? It had taken Great Britain, which in its own estimation had the most professional army in the world in 1914, nearly two years before it was able to deploy a force big enough to mount a sustained offensive effort.

Germany and the United States embarked on what can only be described as a great race to determine the war’s outcome.

(The Myth of the Great War: A New Military History of World War I. John Mosier. HarperCollins, 2001, pp. 303-305)