Just as the city was establishing itself as the financial capital of the United States, a combination of the results of rapid population growth and terrible weather resulted in a fire that laid waste to the wealthiest part of America’s wealthiest city. As the New York Mercantile Advisor wrote, “there is a terrible calamity in New York.”
The “Great Sedition Trial” uncovered shocking connections at the time with the German reich that we were fighting, and challenged the idea that the nation was of a single mind during the war. It also challenged exactly how far the national commitment to freedom of speech and opinion reached, especially in extraordinary times.