Volume 18 , Issue 39

The Know-Nothing Party of the 1850's

The Know-Nothing Party, also known as the American Party, was a prominent United States political party during the late 1840s and the early 1850s. The American Party originated in 1849. Its members strongly opposed immigrants and followers of the Catholic Church.

Know-Nothing party, byname of American Party, U.S. political party that flourished in the 1850s. The Know-Nothing party was an outgrowth of the strong anti-immigrant and especially anti-Roman Catholic sentiment that started to manifest itself during the 1840s. A rising tide of immigrants, primarily Germans in the Midwest and Irish in the East, seemed to pose a threat to the economic and political security of native-born Protestant Americans. In 1849 the secret Order of the Star-Spangled Banner formed in New York City, and soon after lodges formed in nearly every other major American city. Members, when asked about their nativist organizations, were supposed to reply that they knew nothing, hence the name. - Know-Nothing party

The Know-Nothing (American) Party called for restrictions on immigration; the exclusion of the foreign-born from voting or holding public office in the United States; and for a 21-year residency requirement for citizenship.

In 1852 the Know-Nothing party was achieving phenomenal growth. It won additional adherents from the ranks of conservatives who would support neither the proslavery democrats nor antislavery republicans. When Congress assembled on Dec. 3, 1855, 43 representatives were avowed members of the Know-Nothing party.

That ws the peak of Know-Nothing power. It was at the American party convention in Philadelphia the following year, the party split along sectional lines over the proslavery platform pushed through by Southern delegates.

The American (Know-Nothing) party fell apart after 1856. Antislavery Know-Nothings joined the republican party. There were two other groups that took the name American party that appeared in the 1870s and 1880's.
  |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

---