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Know Nothing
Other name	Native American Party American Party
First Leader	Lewis Charles Levin
Founded	1844 (1844)
Dissolved	1860 (1860)
Preceded by	Whig Party
Succeeded by	Constitutional Union Party
Headquarters	New York City
Secret wing	Order of the Star Spangled Banner
Ideology	American nationalism Anti-Catholicism Populism Nativism Republicanism
Political position	Right-wing
Religion	Protestantism
Colors	Red      White      Blue (United States national colors)
Politics of United States Political parties Elections

The Native American Party, renamed the American Party in 1855 and commonly known as the Know Nothing movement, was an American nativist political party that operated nationally in the mid-1850s. It was primarily anti-Catholic, xenophobic, and hostile to immigration, starting originally as a secret society. The movement briefly emerged as a major political party in the form of the American Party. Adherents to the movement were to reply "I know nothing" when asked about its specifics by outsiders, thus providing the group with its common name.

The Know Nothings believed a "Romanist" conspiracy was afoot to subvert civil and religious liberty in the United States and sought to politically organize native-born Protestants in what they described as a defense of their traditional religious and political values. It is remembered for this theme because of fears by Protestants that Catholic priests and bishops would control a large bloc of voters. In most places, Know Nothingism lasted only a year or two before disintegrating because of weak local leaders, few publicly declared national leaders and a deep split over the issue of slavery. In the South, the party did not emphasize anti-Catholicism, but was the main alternative to the dominant Democratic Party.

The collapse of the Whig Party after the passage of the Kansas–Nebraska Act left an opening for the emergence of a new major party in opposition to the Democrats. The Know Nothings elected congressman Nathaniel P. Banks of Massachusetts and several other individuals in the 1854 elections and created a new party organization known as the American Party. Particularly in the South, the American Party served as a vehicle for politicians opposed to the Democratic Party. Many also hoped that it would seek a middle ground between the pro-slavery positions of many Democratic politicians and the anti-slavery positions of the emerging Republican Party. The American Party nominated former President Millard Fillmore in the 1856 presidential election, although he kept quiet about his membership.^[1] Fillmore received 21.5% of the popular vote in the 1856 presidential election, finishing behind the Democratic and Republican nominees.

The party declined rapidly after the 1856 election. The 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford decision further aroused opposition to slavery in the North, where many Know Nothings joined the Republicans. Most of the remaining members of the party supported the Constitutional Union Party in the 1860 presidential election.

History

Anti-Catholicism had been a factor in colonial America but played a minor role in American politics until the arrival of large numbers of Irish and German Catholics in the 1840s.^[2] It then reemerged in nativist attacks on Catholic immigration. It appeared in New York politics as early as 1843 under the banner of the American Republican Party.^[3] The movement quickly spread to nearby states using that name 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, who went on to be the first Jewish congressman, was elected Representative from Pennsylvania's 1st district. In the early 1850s, numerous secret orders grew up, of which the Order of United Americans^[4] 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 non-Catholics, particularly those who were lower middle class or skilled workmen.^[5]

Name

The name "Know Nothing" originated in the semi-secret organization of the party. When a member was asked about his activities, he was supposed to reply, "I know nothing." Outsiders derisively called them "Know Nothings," and the name stuck. In 1855, the Know Nothings first entered politics under the American Party label.^[6][7]

Underlying issues

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. Violence occasionally erupted at the polls. 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".^[8][9] 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 created by Charles B. Allen in New York City. At its inception, the Order of the Star Spangled Banner only had about 36 members.^[10] Fear of Catholic immigration led to a dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party, whose leadership in many cities included Catholics of Irish descent. Activists formed secret groups, coordinating their votes and throwing their weight behind candidates 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 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

Rise

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, editor Robert T. Conrad, was soon revealed as a Know Nothing as 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 capital 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 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 helped elect Stephen Palfrey Webb as Mayor of San Francisco and 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 well 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.^[11]

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 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.^[12]

In San Francisco, California, 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 person could testify as a witness against a white man in court.^[13]

Fillmore–Donelson campaign poster

In the spring of 1855, Levi Boone was elected mayor of Chicago for the Know Nothings 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.^[14] 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. 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.^[15][16]

Know Nothings scored victories in Northern state elections in 1854, winning control 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.^[17]

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.^[18] The party was occasionally referred to, contemporaneously, in a slightly pejorative shortening, "Knism."^[19]

Leadership and legislation

Historian John Mulkern has examined the party's success in sweeping to almost complete 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 class, 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.^[20]

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.^[21] 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.^[22]

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 change erected by party politics, and released a flood of reforms."^[23] Historian Stephen Taylor says:

[In addition to nativist legislation], the party also distinguished itself by its opposition to slavery, support for an expansion of the rights of women, regulation of industry, and support of measures designed to improve the status of working people.^[24]

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 set up the state's first reform 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.^[25]

The highest priority included attacks on the civil rights of Irish Catholic immigrants. After this, state courts lost the power to process applications for citizenship and public schools had to require compulsory daily reading of the Protestant Bible (which the nativists were sure would transform the Catholic children). The governor disbanded the Irish militias and replaced Irish holding state jobs with Protestants. It failed to reach the 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 requirement for naturalization from five years to 21 years, but Congress never acted.^[26] The most dramatic move 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 legislature shut down its committee, ejected the reformer, and saw its investigation become a laughing stock.^{[27][28][29][30]}

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.^[31] Local newspapers such as The Providence Journal fueled anti-Irish and anti-Catholic sentiment.^[31]

Violence

Know Nothing Party ticket naming party candidates for state and county offices (at the bottom of the page are voting instructions)

Fearful that Catholics were flooding the polls with non-citizens, local activists threatened to stop them.

On 6 August 1855, rioting broke out Louisville, Kentucky, during a hotly contested race for the office of governor. 22 were killed and many injured. This "Bloody Monday" riot was not the only violent riot between Know Nothings and Catholics in 1855.^[32] 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, Father Johannes Bapst, in the coastal town of Ellsworth in 1851 and the burning of a Catholic church in Bath in 1854.^[33]

South

In the South, 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.^[17] 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.^[34]

David T. Gleeson notes that many Irish Catholics in the South feared 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.^[35]

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.^[36]

In Louisiana and Maryland, the Know Nothings enlisted native-born Catholics.^[37] Know Nothing congressman John Edward Bouligny was the only member of the Louisiana congressional delegation to refuse to resign his seat after the state seceded from the Union.^[38] In Maryland, the party's influence lasted at least through the Civil War: the American Party's Governor and later Senator Thomas Holliday Hicks, Representative Henry Winter Davis, and Senator Anthony Kennedy, with his brother, former Representative John Pendleton Kennedy, all supported the United States in a State which bordered the Confederate states. Historian Michael F. Holt argues that "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". Holt cites 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".^[39]

Decline

Results by county indicating the percentage for Fillmore in each county

The party declined rapidly in the North after 1855. In the presidential 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, winning 23% of the popular vote and carrying one state, Maryland, with eight electoral votes. Fillmore did not win enough votes to block Democrat James Buchanan from the White House. During this time, Nathaniel Banks decided he was not as strongly for the anti-immigrant platform as the party wanted him to be, so he left the Know Nothing Party for the more anti-slavery Republican Party. He contributed to the decline of the Know Nothing Party by taking two-thirds of its members with him.

Many were appalled by the Know Nothings. Abraham Lincoln expressed his own disgust with the political party in a private letter to Joshua Speed written August 24, 1855. Lincoln never publicly attacked the Know Nothings, whose votes he needed:

I am not a Know-Nothing—that is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except negroes." When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equals, except negroes and foreigners and Catholics." When it comes to that I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty—to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.^[40]

Historian Allan Nevins, writing about the turmoil preceding the American Civil War, states that Millard Fillmore was never a Know Nothing nor a nativist. Fillmore was out of the country when the presidential nomination came and had not been consulted about running. Nevins further states:

[Fillmore] was not a member of the party; he had never attended an American [Know-Nothing] gathering. By no spoken or written word had he indicated a subscription to American [Party] tenets.^[41]

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.^[42]

Electoral history

Congressional elections

United States House of Representatives Election year No. of overall seats won +/– Presidency 1844 6 / 227 6 James K. Polk 1846 1 / 230 5 1848 1 / 233 Zachary Taylor 1850 0 / 233 1 Millard Fillmore 1852 0 / 234 Franklin Pierce 1854 52 / 234 52 1856 14 / 237 38 James Buchanan 1858 6 / 238 8 1860 0 / 239 6 Abraham Lincoln

United States Senate Election year No. of overall seats won +/– Presidency 1844 0 / 58 James K. Polk 1846 0 / 60 1848 0 / 62 Zachary Taylor 1850 0 / 62 Millard Fillmore 1852 0 / 62 Franklin Pierce 1854 1 / 62 1 1856 5 / 66 4 James Buchanan 1858 2 / 66 3 1860 0 / 68 2 Abraham Lincoln

Presidential elections

Election	Candidate	Running mate	Votes	Vote %	Electoral votes	+/-	Outcome of election
1852	Jacob Broom	Reynell Coates	2,566	0.1	0 / 294		Democratic victory
1856	Millard Fillmore	Andrew Jackson Donelson	873,053	21.5	8 / 294	8	Democratic victory

Legacy

The Nativist spirit of the Know Nothing movement was revived in later political movements, such as the American Protective Association of the 1890s and the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s.^[43] 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.^[44][45] 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.^[46]

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". Fareed Zakaria wrote that politicians who "encourage[d] Americans to fear foreigners" were becoming "modern incarnations of the Know-Nothings".^[43] In 2006, an editorial in The Weekly Standard by neoconservative William Kristol accused populist Republicans of "turning the GOP into an anti-immigration, Know-Nothing party".^[47] The lead editorial of the May 20, 2007 issue of The New York Times on a proposed immigration bill referred to "this generation's Know-Nothings".^[48] An editorial written by Timothy Egan in The New York Times on August 27, 2010 and entitled "Building a Nation of Know-Nothings" discussed the birther movement, which falsely claimed that Barack Obama was not a natural-born United States citizen, which is a requirement for the office of President of the United States.^[49]

In the 2016 United States presidential election, a number of commentators and politicians compared candidate Donald Trump to the Know Nothings due to his anti-immigration policies.^{[50][51][52][53][54][55]}

In popular culture

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, who was also the real life leader of the Bowery Boys.^[56] The Know Nothings also play a prominent role in the historical fiction novel Shaman by novelist Noah Gordon.

Notable Know Nothings

• 
  Nathaniel P. Banks, Congress Speaker of the House from Massachusetts and Union Army general


• 
  Levi Boone, Mayor of Chicago


• 
  John Wilkes Booth, actor at Ford's Theatre who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln
  


• 
  John Edward Bouligny, congressman from Louisiana


• 
  Henry Winter Davis, congressman from Maryland


• 
  Millard Fillmore, 13th President of the United States
  


• 
  Thomas Holliday Hicks, Governor of Maryland
  


• 
  William W. Hoppin, Governor of Rhode Island^[31]
  


• 
  Sam Houston, Senator from Texas^[57]
  


• 
  J. Neely Johnson, Governor of California
  


• 
  Anthony Kennedy, Senator from Maryland


• 
  Lewis Charles Levin, politician and social activist


• 
  Samuel Morse, politician, painter and inventor of morse code and the telegraph
  


• 
  William Poole, politician and a founder and leader of the New York City criminal Nativist gang the Bowery Boys
  


• 
  Thaddeus Stevens, congressman from Pennsylvania


• 
  Stephen Palfrey Webb, Mayor of San Francisco
  


• 
  Henry Wilson, 18th Vice President of the United States
  

See also

• 71st Infantry Regiment (New York)


• Bloody Monday


• Bowery Boys


• John J. Crittenden


• James Greene Hardy


• Samuel Hinks


• Know-Nothing Riot of 1856


• Philadelphia Nativist Riots


• Thomas Swann


• Third Party System

References

Bibliography

Primary sources

S. C. Busey

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Know Nothing.

• Nativism in the 1856 Presidential Election


• Nativism By Michael F. Holt, PhD


• Lager Beer Riot, Chicago 1855


• 
  "Knownothingism". Catholic Encyclopedia.
  


• 
  American Party from the Handbook of Texas Online
  


• Millard Fillmore Was A Know-Nothing


• 
  Texts on Wikisource:
  
  
  
  • Know Nothing Platform 1856
  
  
  • 
    "Know-Nothings". New International Encyclopedia. 1905.