| Native American Party (1845-1855) American Party (1855-1860) |
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|---|---|
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Citizen Know Nothing The Know Nothing Party's nativist ideal |
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| Founded | 1845 |
| Dissolved | 1860 |
| Ideology | Nativism, anti-Catholicism, temperance, republicanism |
| Political position | Protestant |
| International affiliation | None |
| Politics of the United States Political parties Elections |
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The Know Nothing was a movement by the nativist American political faction of the 1850s, characterized by political xenophobia, anti-Catholic sentiment, and occasional bouts of violence against the groups the nativists targeted. It was empowered by popular fears that the country was being overwhelmed by German and Irish Catholic immigrants, who were often regarded as hostile to republican values and controlled by the Pope in Rome. Mainly active from 1854 to 1856, it strove to curb immigration and naturalization, though its efforts met with little success. Membership was limited to Protestant males of British American lineage. There were few prominent leaders, and the largely middle-class and entirely Protestant membership fragmented over the issue of slavery.
Nativists had become active in politics in New York in 1843 as the American Republican Party. It spread to nearby states as the Native American Party (which appealed to native-born white citizens) and won a few thousand votes in 1844. Historian Tyler Anbinder warns, however, that the "Native American" party should not be confused with the Know-Nothings because the two different groups ran separate tickets in the same elections in the 1850s.[1]
In the early 1850s numerous anti-Catholic secret orders grew up, of which the "Order of United Americans"[2] and the Order of the Star Spangled Banner came to be the most important. They merged in New York in the early 1850s as a secret order that quickly spread across the North, reaching Protestants, especially those who were lower middle class or skilled workmen. Outsiders called them "Know-Nothings" and the name stuck. In 1855 the Know-Nothings first entered politics under the American Party label.[3] The origin of the "Know Nothing" term was in the semi-secret organization of the party. When a member was asked about its activities, he was supposed to reply, "I know nothing"[4].
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The immigration of large numbers of Irish and German Catholics to the United States in the period between 1830 and 1860 made religious differences between Catholics and Protestants a political issue, tensions which echoed European conflicts between Catholics and Protestants. Violence occasionally erupted over elections.
Although Catholics asserted that they were politically independent of priests, Protestants alleged that Pope Pius IX had put down the failed liberal Revolutions of 1848 and that he was an opponent of liberty, democracy and Republicanism. One Boston minister described Catholicism as "the ally of tyranny, the opponent of material prosperity, the foe of thrift, the enemy of the railroad, the caucus, and the school."[5][6] These fears encouraged conspiracy theories regarding the Pope's purported plans to subjugate the United States through a continuing influx of Catholics controlled by Irish bishops obedient to and personally selected by the Pope. In 1849, an oath-bound secret society, the Order of the Star Spangled Banner, was created by Charles B. Allen in New York City. It became the nucleus of some units of the American Party.
Fear of Catholic immigration led to a dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party, whose leadership in many cities included Irish American Catholics. Activists formed secret groups, coordinating their votes and throwing their weight behind candidates sympathetic to their cause. When asked about these secret organizations, members were to reply "I know nothing," which led to their popularly being called Know Nothings. This movement won elections in major cities from Chicago to Boston in 1855, and carried the Massachusetts legislature and governorship.
Immigration during the first five years of the 1850s reached a level five times greater than a decade earlier. Most of the new arrivals were poor Catholic peasants or laborers from Ireland and Germany who crowded into the tenements of large cities. Crime and welfare costs soared. Cincinnati's crime rate, for example, tripled between 1846 and 1853 and its murder rate increased sevenfold. Boston's expenditures for poor relief rose threefold during the same period.
— James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 131
In spring 1854, the Know Nothings carried Boston, Salem, and other New England cities. They swept the state of Massachusetts in the fall 1854 elections, their biggest victory. The Whig candidate for mayor of Philadelphia was editor Robert T. Conrad, soon revealed as a Know Nothing; he promised to crack down on crime, close saloons on Sundays, and to appoint only native-born Americans to office. He won by a landslide. In Washington, D.C., Know-Nothing candidate John T. Towers defeated incumbent Mayor John Walker Maury, causing opposition of such proportion that the Democrats, Whigs, and Freesoilers in the capitol united as the "Anti-Know-Nothing Party." In New York, in a four-way race, the Know-Nothing candidate ran third with 26%. After the fall 1854 elections, they claimed to have exerted decisive influence in Maine, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and California, but historians are unsure due to the secrecy, as all parties were in turmoil and the anti-slavery and prohibition issues overlapped with nativism in complex and confusing ways. They did elect the Mayor of San Francisco, Stephen Palfrey Webb, and J. Neely Johnson as Governor of California. They were still an unofficial movement with no centralized organization. The results of the 1854 elections were so favorable to the Know Nothings that they formed officially as a political party called the American Party, and attracted many members of the now nearly-defunct Whig party, as well as a significant number of Democrats and prohibitionists. Membership in the American Party increased dramatically, from 50,000 to an estimated one million plus in a matter of months during that year.[7]
The same person might also split tickets to vote for Americans, Democrats and Republicans, for party loyalty was in confusion. Simultaneously, the new Republican party emerged as a dominant power in many northern states. Very few prominent politicians joined the American Party, and very few party leaders had subsequent careers in politics. The major exceptions were Schuyler Colfax in Indiana and Henry Wilson in Massachusetts, who became Republicans and both were elected Vice President.
A historian of the party concludes:
The key to Know Nothing success in 1854 was the collapse of the second party system, brought about primarily by the demise of the Whig party. The Whig party, weakened for years by internal dissent and chronic factionalism, was nearly destroyed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Growing anti-party sentiment, fueled by anti-slavery as well as temperance and nativism, also contributed to the disintegration of the party system. The collapsing second party system gave the Know Nothings a much larger pool of potential converts than was available to previous nativist organizations, allowing the Order to succeed where older nativist groups had failed.
— Tyler G. Anbinder, 'Nativism and Slavery, p. 95
In 1854, members of the American Party allegedly stole and destroyed the block of granite contributed by Pius IX for the Washington Monument. They also took over the monument's building society and controlled it for four years. What little progress occurred in their tenure had to be undone and remade. For the full story, see Washington Monument: History.
In California in 1854, Sam Roberts founded a Know-Nothing chapter in San Francisco. The group was formed in opposition to Chinese and Irish immigrants.
In spring 1855, Levi Boone was elected Mayor of Chicago for the Know Nothings. He barred all immigrants from city jobs. Statewide, however, Republican Abraham Lincoln blocked the party from any successes. Ohio was the only state where the party gained strength in 1855. Their Ohio success seems to have come from winning over immigrants, especially German Lutherans and Scotch Irish Presbyterians who opposed Catholicism. In Alabama, the Know Nothings were a mix of former Whigs, malcontented Democrats, and other political outsiders who favored state aid to build more railroads. In the tempestuous 1855 campaign, the Democrats won by convincing state voters that Alabama Know Nothings would not protect slavery from Northern abolitionists.
Know-Nothings scored startling victories in northern state elections in 1854, winning control of the legislature in Massachusetts and polling 40 percent of the vote in Pennsylvania. Although most of the new immigrants lived in the North, resentment and anger against them was national, and the American Party initially polled well in the South, attracting the votes of many former southern Whigs.
Few Know-Nothings were wealthy, but their incomes, occupation and social status were about average, according to detailed historical studies of once-secret membership rosters. Fewer than 10% were unskilled workers who might come in direct competition with Irish laborers. They enlisted few farmers, but on the other hand they included many merchants and factory owners.[8] The party's voters were by no means all native born Americans, for it won more than a fourth of the German and British Protestants in numerous state elections. It especially appealed to Lutherans, Dutch Reformed and Presbyterians.[9]
The party name gained wide but brief popularity. Nativism became a new American rage: Know-Nothing candy, Know-nothing tea, and Know-Nothing toothpicks appeared. Stagecoaches were dubbed "The Know-Nothing." In Trescott, Maine, a shipowner dubbed his new 700-ton freighter, "Know-Nothing."[10]
The party was occasionally referred to contemporaneously in the slightly pejorative shortening, "Knism".[11]
Fearful that Catholics were flooding the polls with non-citizens, local activists threatened to stop them. Tensions came a head on 6 August 1855, in Louisville, Kentucky. In a hotly contested race for the office of governor of that state, 22 were killed and many injured. The Louisville riot was only the most spectacular of violent riots between Know Nothing activists and Catholics in 1855.[12]
In Baltimore the mayoral elections of 1856, 1857 and 1858 were all marred by violence and well-founded accusations of ballot-rigging.
In Maine, Know-Nothings were associated with the tarring and feathering of a Catholic priest, John Bapst, in the coastal town of Ellsworth in 1851 and the burning of a Catholic church in Bath in 1854.
There were few Catholics in the South and the American Party there was comprised chiefly of ex-Whigs looking for a vehicle to fight the dominant Democratic Party. Southern Know Nothings were mostly ex-Whigs who were worried about both the pro-slavery extremism of the Democrats and the emergence of the anti-slavery Republican party in the North. [13] In the South as a whole the American Party was strongest among former Unionist Whigs. States-rightist Whigs shunned it, enabling the Democrats to win most of the South. Whigs supported the American Party because of their desire to defeat the Democrats, their unionist sentiment, their anti-immigrant attitudes, and the Know-Nothing neutrality on the slavery issue.[14] In 1855 the American Party challenged the Democrats' dominance. In Alabama, the Know-Nothings were a mix of former Whigs, malcontented Democrats, and other political misfits; they favored state aid to build more railroads. In the fierce campaign, the Democrats argued that Know-Nothings could not protect slavery from Northern abolitionists. The Know-Nothing American Party disintegrated soon after losing in 1855.[15]
In Louisiana and Maryland, the Know-Nothings enlisted Catholics.[16] Historian Michael F. Holt, however, argues, "Know Nothingism originally grew in the South for the same reasons it spread in the North – nativism, anti-Catholicism, and animosity toward unresponsive politicos – not because of conservative Unionism." He quotes William B. Campbell, former governor of Tennessee, who wrote in January 1855, "I have been astonished at the widespread feeling in favor of their principles – to wit, Native Americanism and anti-Catholicism – it takes everywhere."[17]
In spring 1855, Levi Boone was elected Mayor of Chicago for the Know Nothings. He barred all immigrants from city jobs. Statewide, however, Republican Abraham Lincoln blocked the party from any successes. Ohio was the only state where the party gained strength in 1855. Their Ohio success seems to have come from winning over immigrants, especially anti-Catholic German Lutherans and Scotch Irish Presbyterians.
The party declined rapidly in the North after 1855. In the Election of 1856 it was bitterly divided over slavery. The main faction supported the ticket of presidential nominee Millard Fillmore and vice-presidential nominee Andrew Jackson Donelson. Fillmore, a former President, had been a Whig, and Donelson was the nephew of Democratic President Andrew Jackson, so the ticket was designed to appeal to loyalists from both major parties. It won 23% of the popular vote and carried one state, Maryland, with eight electoral votes. Fillmore did not win enough votes to block Democrat James Buchanan from the White House. After the Supreme Court's controversial Dred Scott v. Sandford ruling in 1857, most of the anti-slavery members of the American Party joined the Republican Party. The pro-slavery wing of the American Party remained strong on the local and state levels in a few southern states, but by the 1860 election, they were no longer a serious national political movement. Most of their remaining members supported the Constitutional Union Party in 1860.[18]
The platform of the American Party called for, among other things:
| Election year | Result | Nominees | |
|---|---|---|---|
| President | Vice President | ||
| 1852 | lost | Daniel Webster, then, on Webster's death, Jacob Broom[19][20] |
George C. Washington then Reynell Coates[19][20] |
| 1856 | lost | Millard Fillmore | Andrew Jackson Donelson |
The American Party was represented in the 2002 film Gangs of New York, led by William "Bill the Butcher" Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis), the fictionalized version of real-life Know Nothing leader William Poole. The Know Nothings also play a prominent role in the historical novel Shaman by Noah Gordon.
The term "Know Nothing" is better remembered than the party itself. The nativist spirit of the Know Nothing movement was revived in later political movements, such as the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Protective Association of the 1890s.[21]
In the late 19th century, Democrats would call the Republicans "Know Nothings" in order to secure the votes of Germans, as in the Bennett Law campaign in Wisconsin in 1890.[22][23] A similar culture war took place in Illinois in 1892, where Democrat John Peter Altgeld denounced the Republicans:
| “ | The spirit which enacted the Alien and Sedition laws, the spirit which actuated the "Know-nothing" party, the spirit which is forever carping about the foreign-born citizen and trying to abridge his privileges, is too deeply seated in the party. The aristocratic and know-nothing principle has been circulating in its system so long that it will require more than one somersault to shake the poison out of its bones.[24] | ” |
The term has become a provocative slur, suggesting that the opponent is both nativist and ignorant. George Wallace's 1968 presidential campaign was said by Time to be under the "neo-Know Nothing banner".[21] Editor Fareed Zakaria has said that politicians who "encouraged Americans to fear foreigners" were becoming "modern incarnations of the Know-Nothings".[21] In 2006, an editorial in The Weekly Standard by conservative William Kristol accused populist Republicans of "turning the GOP into an anti-immigration, Know-Nothing party."[25] The lead editorial of The New York Times for 20 May 2007, on a proposed immigration bill, referred to "this generation's Know-Nothings".[26] An editorial written by Timothy Egan in The New York Times on 27 August 2010, entitled "Building a Nation of Know-Nothings", discussed the Birther movement, which believes that President Barack Obama is not a legal citizen of the United States.[27]