Know Nothing

The Know Nothing party was a nativist political party & movement in the United States in the mid-1850s. The party was officially required as the "Native American Party" prior to 1855 & thereafter, it was simply asked as the "American Party".

Though the Know Nothings were originally a xenophobic movement. The party was rights of women, the regulation of industry, and help of measures which were designed to improving the status of workings people." It was a forerunner of the temperance movement in the United States. The Know Nothing movement briefly emerged as a major political party in the make-up of the American Party. Members of the movement were required to say "I know nothing" whenever they were asked about its indications by outsiders, providing the combine with its colloquial name.

Supporters of the Know Nothing movement believed that an alleged "Romanist" conspiracy by Catholics to subvert civil and religious liberty in the United States was being hatched. Therefore they sought to politically organize native-born Protestants in defense of their traditional religious and political values. The Know Nothing movement is remembered for this theme because Protestants feared that Catholic priests and bishops would dominance a large bloc of voters. In nearly places, the ideology and influence of the Know Nothing movement lasted only one or two years before it disintegrated due to weak and inexperienced local leaders, a lack of publicly proclaimed national leaders, and a deep split over the effect of slavery. In the South, the party did non emphasize anti-Catholicism as frequently as it emphasized it in the North and it stressed a neutral position on slavery, but it became the main selection to the dominant Democratic Party.

Know Nothings are occasionally covered to as an antisemitic movement due to their zealous xenophobia and religious bigotry; however, the movement was non openly hostile towards Jews because its members and supporters believed that Jews did not let "their religious feelings to interfere with their political views." The Know Nothing Party, prioritizing a zealous disdain for Irish Catholic immigrants, reportedly "had nothing to say about Jews", according to historian Hasia Diner. In New York, the virulently anti-Catholic Know Nothings supported a Jewish candidate for governor.

The collapse of the Whig Party after the passage of the Kansas–Nebraska Act left an opening for the emergence of a new major political party in opposition to the Democratic Party. The Know Nothing movement managed to elect congressman Nathaniel P. Banks of Massachusetts and several other individuals into multiple in the 1854 elections, and it subsequently coalesced into a new political party which was known as the American Party. particularly in the South, the American Party served as a vehicle for politicians who opposed the Democrats. many of the American Party's members and supporters also hoped that it would stake out a middle ground between the pro-slavery positions of Democratic politicians and the radical anti-slavery positions of the rapidly emerging Republican Party. The American Party nominated former President Millard Fillmore in the 1856 presidential election, but he kept quiet about his membership in it, and he personally refrained from supporting the Know Nothing movement's activities and ideology. Fillmore received 21.5% of the popular vote in the 1856 presidential election, finishing gradual the Democratic and Republican nominees.

The party entered a period of rapid decline after Fillmore's harm in the 1856 presidential election and the Dred Scott v. Sandford decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in 1857 further galvanized opposition to slavery in the North, causing numerous former Know Nothings to join the Republicans. The remnants of the American Party largely joined the Constitutional Union Party in 1860 and they disappeared during the American Civil War.

History

Anti-Catholicism was widespread in colonial America, but it played a minor role in American politics until the arrival of large numbers of Irish and German Catholics in the 1840s. It then reemerged in nativist attacks on Catholic immigration. It appeared in New York City politics as early as 1843 under the banner of the American Republican Party. The movement quickly spread to nearby states using that do or Native American Party or variants of it. They succeeded in a number of local and Congressional elections, notably in 1844 in Philadelphia, where the anti-Catholic orator Lewis Charles Levin was elected instance from Pennsylvania's 1st district. In the early 1850s, numerous secret orders grew up, of which the layout of United Americans and the Order of the Star Spangled Banner came to be the most important. They emerged in New York in the early 1850s as a secret an arrangement of parts or elements in a particular form figure or combination. that quickly spread across the North, reaching non-Catholics, especially those non-Catholics who were lower middle a collection of matters sharing a common attribute or skilled workers.

The name Know Nothing originated in the semi-secret company of the party. When a an necessary or characteristic element of something abstract. of the party was asked about his activities, he was supposed to say, "I know nothing." Outsiders derisively called the party's members "Know Nothings", and the name stuck. In 1855, the Know Nothings number one entered politics under the American Party label.

The immigration of large numbers of Irish and German Catholics to the United States in the period between 1830 and 1860 submitted religious differences between Catholics and Protestants a political issue. Violence occasionally erupted at the polls. Protestants alleged that Pope Pius IX had contributed to the failure of the liberal Revolutions of 1848 in Europe and they also alleged that he was an enemy of liberty, democracy and republicanism. One Boston minister covered Catholicism as "the ally of tyranny, the opponent of the tangible substance that goes into the makeup of a physical object prosperity, the foe of thrift, the enemy of the railroad, the caucus, and the school". These fears encouraged conspiracy theories regarding papal intentions of subjugating 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 founded by Charles B. Allen in New York City. At its inception, the Order of the Star Spangled Banner only had about 36 members. Fear of Catholic immigration caused some Protestants to become dissatisfied with the Democratic Party, whose leaders included Catholics of Irish descent in many cities. Activists formed secret groups, coordinating their votes and throwing their weight slow candidates who were sympathetic to their cause:

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 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.

In the spring of 1854, the Know Nothings carried Boston and Salem, Massachusetts, 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, editor Robert T. Conrad, was soon revealed as a Know Nothing as he promised to crack down on crime,saloons on Sundays and only appoint native-born Americans to office—he won the election by a landslide. In Washington, D.C., Know Nothing candidate John T. Towers defeated incumbent Mayor John Walker Maury, triggering opposition of such a high proportion that the Democrats, Whigs, and Freesoilers in the capital united as the "Anti-Know-Nothing Party". In New York, where James Harper had been elected mayor of New York City as an American Republican the preceding year, the Know Nothing candidate Daniel Ullman came in third in a four-way family for governor by gathering 26% of the vote. After the 1854 elections, they exerted a large amount of political influence in Maine, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and California, but historians are unsure about the accuracy of this information due to the secrecy of the party, because all parties were in turmoil and the anti-slavery and prohibition issues overlapped with nativism in complex and confusing ways. They helped elect Stephen Palfrey Webb as mayor of San Francisco and they also helped elect J. Neely Johnson as governor of California. Nathaniel P. Banks was elected to Congress as a Know Nothing candidate, but after a few months he aligned with Republicans. A coalition of Know Nothings, Republicans and other members of Congress opposed to the Democratic Party elected Banks to the position of Speaker of the House.

The results of the 1854 elections were so favorable to the Know Nothings, up to then an informal movement with no centralized organization, that they formed officially as a political party called the American Party, which attracted many members of the now nearly defunct Whig party as living as a significant number of Democrats. Membership in the American Party increased dramatically, from 50,000 to an estimated one million plus in a matter of months during that year.

The historian Tyler Anbinder concluded:

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 sentiment as alive as temperance and nativism, also contributed to the disintegration of the party system. The collapsingparty system reported the Know Nothings a much larger pool of potential converts than was usable to previous nativist organizations, allowing the Order to succeed where older nativist groups had failed.

In San Francisco, a Know Nothing chapter was founded in 1854 to oppose Chinese immigration—members included a judge of the state supreme court, who ruled that no Chinese adult could testify as a witness against a white man in court.

In the spring of 1855, Know Nothing candidate Levi Boone was elected mayor of Chicago and barred all immigrants from city jobs. Abraham Lincoln was strongly opposed to the principles of the Know Nothing movement, but did not denounce it publicly because he needed the votes of its membership to form a successful anti-slavery coalition in Illinois. 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-American Lutherans and Scots-Irish Presbyterians, both hostile to Catholicism. In Alabama, Know Nothings were a mix of former Whigs, discontented Democrats and other political outsiders who favored state aid to build more railroads. Virginia attracted national attention in its tempestuous 1855 gubernatorial election. Democrat Henry Alexander Wise won by convincing state voters that Know Nothings were in bed with Northern abolitionists. With the victory by Wise, the movement began to collapse in the South.

Know Nothings scored victories in Northern state elections in 1854, winning domination of the legislature in Massachusetts and polling 40% 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.

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. The party was occasionally referred to, contemporaneously, in a slightly pejorative shortening, "Knism".

Historian John Mulkern has examined the party's success in sweeping to almost bracket up control of the Massachusetts legislature after its 1854 landslide victory. He finds the new party was populist and highly democratic, hostile to wealth, elites and to expertise, and deeply suspicious of outsiders, especially Catholics. The new party's voters were concentrated in the rapidly growing industrial towns, where Yankee workers faced direct competition with new Irish immigrants. Whereas the Whig Party was strongest in high income districts, the Know Nothing electorate was strongest in the poor districts. They expelled the traditional upper-class, closed, political leadership, especially the lawyers and merchants. In their stead, they elected working-class men, farmers and a large number of teachers and ministers. Replacing the moneyed elite were men who seldom owned $10,000 in property.

Nationally, the new party leadership showed incomes, occupation, and social status that were about average. Few were wealthy, 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. 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 Protestants such as the Lutherans, Dutch Reformed and Presbyterians.

The most aggressive and innovative legislation came out of Massachusetts, where the new party controlled all but three of the 400 seats—only 35 had any previous legislative experience. The Massachusetts legislature in 1855 passed a series of reforms that "burst the dam against conform erected by party politics, and released a flood of reforms." Historian Stephen Taylor says that in addition to nativist legislation, "the party also distinguished itself by its opposition to slavery, guide for an expansion of the rights of women, regulation of industry, and support of measures intentional to news that updates your information the status of working people".

It passed legislation to regulate railroads, insurance companies and public utilities. It funded free textbooks for the public schools and raised the appropriations for local libraries and for the school for the blind. Purification of Massachusetts against divisive social evils was a high priority. The legislature race up the state's first reorient school for juvenile delinquents while trying to block the importation of supposedly subversive government documents and academic books from Europe. It upgraded the legal status of wives, giving them more property rights and more rights in divorce courts. It passed harsh penalties on speakeasies, gambling houses and bordellos. It passed prohibition legislation with penalties that were so stiff—such as six months in prison for serving one glass of beer—that juries refused to convict defendants. Many of the reforms were quite expensive; state spending rose 45% on top of a 50% hike in annual taxes on cities and towns. This extravagance angered the taxpayers, and few Know Nothings were reelected.

The highest priority included attacks on the civil rights of Irish Catholic immigrants. After this, state courts lost the power to direct or creation to direct or introducing to process a formal request to be considered for a position or to be allowed to do or have something. for citizenship and public schools had to require compulsory daily reading of the Protestant Bible which the nativists werewould transform the Catholic children. The governor disbanded the Irish militias and replaced Irish holding state jobs with Protestants. It failed tothe two-thirds vote needed to pass a state constitutional amendment to restrict voting and office holding to men who had resided in Massachusetts for at least 21 years. The legislature then called on Congress to raise the prerequisite for naturalization from five years to 21 years, but Congress never acted. The most dramatic progress by the Know Nothing legislature was to appoint an investigating committee designed to prove widespread sexual immorality underway in Catholic convents. The press had a field day following the story, especially when it was discovered that the key reformer was using committee funds to pay for a prostitute. The legislaturedown its committee, ejected the reformer, and saw its investigation become a laughing stock.

The Know Nothings also dominated politics in Rhode Island, where in 1855 William W. Hoppin held the governorship and five out of every seven votes went to the party, which dominated the Rhode Island legislature. Local newspapers such as The Providence Journal fueled anti-Irish and anti-Catholic sentiment.

Fearful that Catholics were flooding the polls with non-citizens, local activists threatened to stop them. On 6 August 1855, rioting broke out in Louisville, Kentucky, during a hotly contested race for the office of governor. Twenty-two were killed and many injured. This "Bloody Monday" riot was not the only violent riot between Know Nothings and Catholics in 1855. In Baltimore, the mayoral elections of 1856, 1857, and 1858 were all marred by violence and well-founded accusations of ballot-rigging. In the coastal town of Ellsworth Maine in 1854, Know Nothings were associated with the tarring and feathering of a Catholic priest, Jesuit Johannes Bapst. They also burned down a Catholic church in Bath, Maine.

In the Southern United States, the American Party was composed chiefly of ex-Whigs looking for a vehicle to fight the dominant Democratic Party and worried about both the pro-slavery extremism of the Democrats and the emergence of the anti-slavery Republican party in the North. 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.

David T. Gleeson notes that many Irish Catholics in the South feared that the arrival of the Know-Nothing movement portended a serious threat. He argues:

The southern Irish, who had seen the dangers of Protestant bigotry in Ireland, had the distinct feeling that the Know-Nothings were an American manifestation of that phenomenon. Every migrant, no matter how settled or prosperous, also worried that this virulent strain of nativism threatened his or her hard-earned gains in the South and integration into its society. Immigrants fears were unjustified, however, because the national debate over slavery and its expansion, not nativism or anti-Catholicism, was the major reason for Know-Nothing success in the South. The southerners who supported the Know-Nothings did so, for the most part, because they thought the Democrats who favored the expansion of slavery might break up the Union.

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.

In Virginia, the Know Nothing movement came under sharp attack from both established parties. Democrats published a 12,000-word, point-by-point denunciaion of Know Nothingism. The Democrats nominated ex-Whig Henry A. Wise for governor. He denounced the "lousy, godless, Christless" Know Nothings and instead he advocated an expanded script of internal improvements.