The Jewish immigrants, who were penetrating into various parts of the country in that period, formed only a portion of the new arrivals. The bulk of them, as in later times, remained in the East, principally in New York City, where not less than ten new congregations were established in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. While the proportion of those unaffiliated with a synagogue was probably smaller then than it is now, the tendency to establish very small synagogues was also less, so that the existence of a dozen congregations in New York about the year 1850 may denote a larger Jewish population at that time than an equal or even a larger number would imply at the present time. It would also not be safe to insist that there were not at that time in existence several congregations whose names were not preserved on account of their insignificance or for other reasons. The German element, which predominated in this second period of Jewish immigration, was mostly under the influence of the liberalism, which was then prevalent in Germany. But the political liberal of central Europe at that time found in the United States all, and in some respects more than, he was striving for in the Old Country, including that national unity which was then only a pious dream in Germany. Aside from the question of slavery, which was not yet acute in the North at the beginning of that period, the German liberal found here all his ideals realized: perfect equality for all white men without distinction of creed or nationality; absolute freedom of speech and of the press; more individual liberty and better opportunities for work, for trade and for enterprise than could be thought of in the localities from which he came. It was natural for most of them to sympathize with the abolitionist movement, and later they were among the first to join the newly formed Republican party. But even the political radical or revolutionary of the other side of the ocean had little to object to in the democracy which he found here fully developed, and he soon became a patriotic, and to some extent a conservative, American citizen.