BHOHHHHHHMHnai
The
Know- Nothingr
Party.
^
A Sketch
By Humphrey J. Desmond.
Washington :
The New Century Press.
190l|-
^^'^
J'^^J.i'^
COPYRIGHT, Woif-
BY H. J. DESMOND.
PREFACE.
A GENERAL view of the Nativist
Movement in American politics has
many points of interest for the student
of history, and not a few instructive
lessons probably applicable to future
conditions. Movements of this nature
are quite likely to recur; if, perhaps,
in a somewhat varied and feebler form,
nevertheless in their salient character-
istics, closely modeled after the I^ow-
Nothing party of 1854.
In the pages of Von Hoist and
Rhodes, in the special pleadings of Lee
and Whitney, in more careful local
studies such as those of Scisco, in the
annals of Congress, in the biographies
or memoirs of men prominent in Amer-
ican public life fifty years ago, in the
political text books of the time, and in
a variety of other publications, thei*e
is a vast amount of information bear-
ing upon the Nativist and Know-
Nothing movements ; but, so far as the
3
writer of these pages is able to ascer-
tain, no attempt has heretofore been
made to gather, from all the best
sources, a survey at once complete
(at least within the limitations of brev-
ity here proposed), connected and free
from the spirit of advocacy.
I
CONTEXTS.
xative-a:mericaxism.
1. A Prelimiuary View, - - 7
2. Nativism in Local Politics, - 22
3. Ite High Tide (1844), - - 34
THE KXOW-XOTHIXG PARTY.
1. Origin and Growth, - - - 48
2. High Tide (1854), - - - - 59
3. Disturbances and Acrimony, - TO
4. Democratic and Republican
Attitudes, ------ 82
5. Know-Nothing Issues, - - 91
6. Solvent Influences, - - - - 100
7. The Campaign of 1856, - - 110
8. Know-Xothings in Congress, 117
9. Last Years, - 122
10. Local Sketches, ----- 126
11. Personnel, ------ 139
12. Afterwards (1860-90), - - - 149
Native Americanism.
I.
A PRELIMINARY VIEW.
T OOKING back, from the threshold
■*— ' of a new century, at the move-
ments of Nativism and anti-Catholic-
ism which transpired in the United
States during the period 1835-60, we
can feel little surprise in the premises.
The mighty immigrations of the nine-
teenth century jostled the" settled col-
onists of the seventeenth and* eigh-
teenth centuries, established here in a
political and industrial ascendancy. A
total of over five million immigrants
landed on our shores up to 1850; a to-
tal of nearly twenty million up to
1900. At the close of the century ov-
7
NATIVE AMERICANISM.
er ten million foreign bom persons are
residents of the United States, and
more than twenty-six million* of the
sixty-six million white inhabitants are
of foreign parentage; making it quite
certain that a majority of the Ameri-
cans of today are descendants of fore-
fathers who came here since Jefferson
was president — the old Americans of
Revolutionary lineage being outnum-
bered by the children of ancestors who
were not here when Washington lived.
So mighty an invasion, peaceable
though it was, could not transpire
without much collision and many read-
justments. The arrival in our large
cities of thousands of immigrants,
differing in race and religion from the
native inhabitants, created conditions
for social and political compromise.
The Irish, for instance, while exhibit-
ing a capacity to assimilate their
neighbors, and sometimes (as in the
case of the Norman and English set-
tlers in Ireland) to make them "more
♦ By the census of 1900 more than half
the people of foreign parentag-e in this
countrj- are of non-English speaking races.
More than half, too, are in race neither
Teutonic 'nor Anglo-Saxon.
8
NATIVE AMERICANISM.
Irish than the Irish themselves" — also
have, for some reason or other, excited
antagonisms more bitter than assailed
any other race of immigrants.f
In the sequel, Nativism met with ut-
ter defeat in all its cherished conten-
tions ; yet substantially the victory was
on the side of the Americans of the
older lineage. There was always a
larger-viewed element among them dis-
posed to welcome immigi*ation to
this country as "the asyhim of the op-
pressed;" to see in the imported
brawn of the Irish and German, mater-
ial for national enrichment — the in-
dustrial army needed for the develop-
t Scisco, in his "Histor>' of Political Na-
tivism in New York," says (ch. I.): "An
anonymous writer to the press touched on
the truth when he complained of the Irish
Catholics that 'they are men, who having
professed to become Americans by accept-
ing our terms of naturalization, do yet, in
direct contradiction to their professions,
clan together as a separate interest and
retain their foreign appellation.' No bet-
ter statement of Nativist complaint could
have been made." Yet to a large extent
this going apart of the Irish was but na-
tural, in view of the contemptuous manner
in which the "nativist" Americans treated
them, ridiculing their appearance, their
country and their religion.
NATIVE AMERICANISM.
ment of the country. History, too, re-
cords no more notable instance of spee-
dy and complete assimilation of a vast
influx of population. The social, polit-
ical and educational institutions of
the Americans Qf'feevol^tionai'y line-
age survived and absorbed and won ov-
er the mighty army of immigrants,
and welded all. elements- into a unified
nationality.
There never was any deep-seated an-
tipathy to foreigners, as such, in this
country. Nativism in its restricted
sense (dislike of European immigrants
on account of their birth) was always
more or less accidental and sporadic.
It is usual in discussing the genesis
of the Native-American movement to
refer to the Alien acts of 1798 as one
of the first manifestations of this feel-
ing, or to the mythical order of Wash-
ington at Valley Forge: "Put none
but Americans on guard tonight."
That which gave !N ative- American-
ism its real strength and animus, how-
ever, was anti-Catholicism;:}: and
% Brownson in his Quarterly Re\'iew for
January 1845, in a survey of Native Ameri-
canism, says that the reaJ objection to the
10
NATIVE AMERICANISM.
the roots of this feeling lie far back in
colonial days. The colonists carried
the "No Popery" sentiment from their
English homes. Founded on sectarian
lines, the colonies naturally were more
deeply tinctm-ed with this feeling
than was England herself; and cir-
cumstances, such as warfare with the
French Catholics on the north and
west, and with the Spanish Catholics
in Florida, deepened the sentiment.
One reason that the French-Canadians
did not join with the American colon-
ies in revolt against England was their
sense of being fairly treated, by the
English, in their religious interests;
and although the continental congress
sent a Catholic priest§ among its
emissaries to them, with proffers of an
equal partnership and independent
statehood, they distrusted colonial big-
otry. France's providential assistance
to the struggling colonies, the presence
of her Catholic soldiers with their af-
foreigner lay deeper than the accident of
birth. "The party is truly an anti-Catho-
lic party."
§ This was Rev. John Carroll after-
wards the first Catholic bishop of the
United States.
11
NATIVE AMERICANISM.
fable chaplains and courteous officers,
remained a liberalizing memory with
the Revolutionary generation.
From 1780 to 1830— a period of fifty
years — the No Popery sentiment slept
with but little awakening. The brief
crusade against aliens during the lat-
ter part of Adams' administration was
strictly incidental to the division be-
tween the parties — the Jeffersonian
party, as the friend of France, having
the adhesion naturally of all the
French, Irish and Scotch immigrants
of that time. The Alien act which had
extended the period of residence re-
quired for naturalization to fourteen
years, was repealed in 1802, and the
five years' requirement of residence re-
stored. The demand made by the
Hartford Convention (1814-15), that
aliens be debarred from civil office|i
may have been suggested by the
enthusiasm with which the Irish im-
migrants hailed the war of 1812 — so
unpopular with New England. British
Minister Foster, who had labored to
prevent this war, said that among the
II This was one of the seven amend-
ments to the constitution proposed by the
Hartford Convention.
12
NATIVE AMERICANISM.
congressmen who voted to declare war
were six members of the Society of
United Irishmen.**
There was really little ground for
alarm in the number of immigrants
which reached our shores in the de-
cades ending with 1840. Up to 1820
foreigners came to America at the
rate of 10,000 a year. From 1821 to
1830, inclusive, 143,439 landed. From
1831 to 1840, the immigration increas-
ed to a total of nearly 600,000, or about
three per cent, of the total population
(seventeen millions) in 1840. From
1840-50 (principally in the last half of
the decade) 1,700,000 immigrants ar-
rived, or seven per cent, of the popula-
tion in 1850. The percentage of the
foreign born population in the decades
prior to 1850 was considerably less
than it has been since the close of the
Civil War. In 1850 the foreign born
element was 9.7 per cent, of the whole
population. During the period 1860-
1900 it has varied between 13 and 14
per cent.
The really alarming symptom was
** See Alexander Johnston's article on
"The American Party," in the "American
Cyclopaedia of Politics."
13
NATIVE AMERICANISM.
tLe large proportion of Catholics
among the iramigrants. More than a
third of the immigrants for the de-
cades ending 1830 and 1840 were from
Ireland, and nearly one-half of the
1,700,000 who landed from 1841-50
were Irish. More than a half, and
probably nearly three-fifths, of the im-
migrants up to 1860 were Catholics.
It is probable that the English "No-
Popery" agitation (1815-29), which
antagonized the movement for Catho-
lic emancipation in Ireland and Eng-
land, had some influence in alarming
the more sectarian portion of the
American public. The opposition to
Catholic emancipation in England nec-
essarily reverted to the position of
Elizabeth's and Cromwell's time — that
the Catholic religion was not entitled
to toleration — that it was a political
danger — that it inculcated a divided
allegiance, etc. This argument was
adopted in America. The pulpit
alarmist could point to new object les-
sons, up to this time unfamiliar to the
American population: bishops (there
were only ten American Catholic bish-
ops in 1833), cathedrals (rather unpre-
14
NATIVE AMERICANISM.
tentious affairs), sisterhoods in a pecu-
liar garb and convents or nunneries.
A consciousness of this change in
public feeling is shown in some pas-
sages Tvhich occur in the pastoral is-
sued in 1833 by the Catholic bishops
on the occasion of their second pro-
vincial council. They refer to the cal-
umnies current in the press. "We no-
tice with regret," they say, "a spirit
exhibited by some of the conductors
of the press engaged in the interest of
those brethren separated from our
communion, which has, within a few
years, been more unkind and unjust
in our regard. Not only do they assail
us and our institutions in a style of
vituperation and offence. * * but
they have even denounced you as en-
emies of the republic, etc."
The first outbreak of nativism oc-
curred in 1834 — the burning of the
TJrsuline convent at Charlestown, near
Boston. In 1833, one Rebecca Reed
had left this institution and told such
tales of harsh treatment that when, in
the following year. Miss Harrison
(Sister Mary John), left the same con-
vent in a dazed and hysterical condi-
tion, the public became excited. She
15
NATIVE AMERICANISM.
suifered from nervous prostration
caused by overwork in preparing her
pupils for an exhibition. Her brother
induced her to return to the convent,
where she was placed under a physi-
cian's care. On August 9, 1834, u
mob composed of the lower element
of Boston's population, surrounded the
the convent, and, although Miss Har-
rison came forth and assured them
that she was not detained against her
will, they ransacked and burned the
building. The better class of Boston
citizens held an indignation meeting
in Fanueil hall, at which the mayor
presided, and the outrage was de-
nounced. The perpetrators were put
on trial, but weakly prosecuted and
consequently acquitted. The sisters
never obtained compensation for their
loss of property, although a coramit-
tee of the Legislature subsequently
recommended this act of public jus-
tice.
In 1836 a book was published which
has been termed "The Uncle Tom's
Cabin of Know-ISI^othingism. Maria
Monlv, a girl of evil character, had
been placed by her mother in a Magda-
len asylum at Montreal, under the
16
NATIVE AMERICANISM.
charge of a Catholic sisterhood. Aid-
ed by a former paramour, she escaped
and shortly fell into the company of
one Rev. J. J. Slocum, who, with oth-
ers, concocted a sensational and ob-
scene narrative of her experience in
the assumed capacity of a nun. This
book was brought out with Howe &
Bates as nominal publishers — these
men being employees of Harper Broth-
ers (which publishing firm, it is said,
really stood behind the enterprise, but:
was reluctant to assume direct respon-
sibility). Maria Monk's "disclosures"
had an immense sale, exceeding that
of any American book up to that time
published. Ministers recommended
it and churches feted its author. She
was taken into the bosom of Christian
homes, where, after a time, her de-
pravity was perceived. It is to be re-
gretted that one so useful to evangel-
icalism should have been allowed to
sink in the social scale so that she af-
terwards died in a public institution.
The parties to this literary enterprise
began litigation among themselves for
the profits. A party of Protestant
clergymen visited Montreal to verify-
the "awful disclosures" and pro-
17
NATIVE AMERICANISM.
nounced them a fabrication. Colonel
W. L. Stone, editor of The New York
Commercial Advertiser, also made a
thorough investigation, visiting the
Hotel Dieu at Montreal from cellar
to garret. "The result," he wrote, "is
the most thorough conviction that Ma-
ria Monk is an arrant impostor, that
she never was a nun, etc."
These two early manifestations of
anti-Catholicism are particularly dwelt
upon because they are prototypes of its
campaign tactics in the following
years. Edward Wilson, in 1845, Ga-
vazzi and the "Angel Gabriel" in 1853-
5, and a score of others followed in the
line of Maria Monk; and what Prof-
essor John B. McMaster calls the
"riotous career of Know-Nothings,"
was a repetition of the convent burn-
ing of 1834. The ex-priest, the es-
caped nun and the incendiary led the
way, as the radical exponents of a
cause, which nevertheless numbered
among its followers some respectable
elements.
In the year following 1830, a new ex-
uberance overtook the electoral life of
the American people. They talked pol-
itics with vigor and gesticulation ; they
18
NATIVE AMERICANISM.
interrupted each others political meet-
ings; they jostled each other at the
polls. It became part of the election
day program for each party to be rep-
resented at the voting precincts by
partisans, loud of lungs and strong of
arm. The native American had prac-
ticed all the tricks and frauds of poli-
tics, such as intimidating voters, stuf-
fing ballot boxes, repeating and tam-
pering with the returns, long before
the foreigner was instructed in these
processes. In the history of the Aboli-
tion moveinent, we have an illustratioa
of the riotous spirit of the American
polities of that generation. In 183.5,
Thompson, an Abolition advocate, was
mobbed in Boston and forced to leave
the city. Garrison, too, felt the wrath
of "a broadcloth mob." November 7,
1837, Lovejoy, an Abolitionist editor,
was murdered at Alton, 111., because he
refused to suspend liis publication.
May 17, 1838, Pennsylvania hall, the
Abolitionist headquarters at Philadel-
phia, was burned to the ground by the
intolerant opponents of the anti-slave-
ry movement. And thus on to 1860,
did Abolitionism meet with disorderly
and riotcms opposition. The party fac-
19
NATIVE AMERICANISM.
tions quarrelled ■with each other, Whigs
assailed Whigs, and Democrats as-
sailed Democrats. The expression ''Lo-
co Focos" applied to one of the Demo-
cratic factions in Xew York, originated
over the incident of an interrupted meet-
ing (October 29, 1835). Emissaries of
one Democratic faction turned off tho
lights at a meeting held by another fac-
tion. Immediately the engloomed Dem-
ocrats, who had prepared for the emer-
gency beforehand, took from their
pockets the new Loco Foco match which
had just come into use, and relighted
their meeting.
Know-Xothingism ran its course
at a time when this sort of
exuberant politics had reached its cli-
max. The Know-Xothings were not
the inventors, but they carried the
method, especially in Baltimore, to its
worst excesses.*
From a survey of disorder of this
kind, we are led to wonder where the
* Volunteer fire companies, which existed
In the principal cities of the United States
at this time, -were largely responsible for
street disorders. There was an intense
rivalry between the companies, and some-
times fires were started on purpose to
bring the rival firemen into collision.
20
NATIVE AMERICANISM.
American notion of free speech de-
veloped; yet it did evolve. If at first
a mere glittering generality; if more
honored in the breach than in the ob-
servance; if more as a pretence than
a practice, it was nevertheless finally
fixed in the customs and principles of
the people.
21
n.
NATIVISM IN LOCAL POLITICS.
T^ HE first political flurry of Nativism
•*• in the local politics of New York
seems to date from the year 1835. It is
associated with the name of Samuel F.
B. Morse, the inventor of the tele-
graph. Early in 1834 he publisLed
twelve letters in The New York Obser-
ver (a weekly paper), over the signa-
ture of "Brutus." These were after-
wards republished under the title "Eor-
eign Conspiracy Against the United
States," a book much read up to 1860.
It appears that while in Europe dur-
ing 1829-32, Morse had heard of the
Leopold Foundation, an Aid Society es-
tablished in Austria to heli) with finan-
c'cA assistance th^ missionary and poor
22
NATIVE AMERICANISM.
Catholic churches of the New World.
This was the most material fact in the
clangers Morse discussed. The "Bru-
tus Letters" had an important local
influence. The Irish immigrants in
the city were gathering antagonisms,
chiefly on account of their religion,
and the "Brutus Letters" gave form
to the argument. A Protestant asso-
ciation was founded to antagonize the
Catholics, and it seems that on March
13, 1835, one of its meetings on Broad-
way was disturbed by Irish interrup-
tion, perhaps after the fashion com-
mon at that time of counter demon-
strations at public meetings; but rath-
er imprudent tactics for foreigners.
In the fall election a Nativist com-
mittee put lip Colonel Monroe (a neph-
ew of ex-President Monroe), for Con-
gress, and the Whigs endorsed him.
But the Democrats, who cast tlu-ee-
fifths of the vote, elected their ticket.
In the spring election of 1836, the Na-
tivists nominated Samuel F. B. Morse
for mayor, and he received about 1-,
500 votes out of a total of over 26,-
000 cast. A Democratic mayor was
elected. The Nativists tried a separ-
ate ticket again in the fall elections,
23
XATIVE AMERICANISM.
with no better success; but in the
spring of 1837 they put up Aaron Clark
for mayor, and at the same time drew
up an address denouncing the Irish.
The ^^Tiig party,f which had all along
exhibited a kindly interest in the Xa-
livist doings, endorsed Clark, and he
was elected by 3,300 plurality. The af-
fair was treated as a TVhig victory, and
the Nativists disappeared as a separ-
ate political activity. Nativist senti-
ment continued, however, to exhibit
itself in petitions to the state legisla-
ture and to Congress, praying for a
registry law and an extension of the
period of residence required^ for nat-
uralization to twenty-one years.
In other portions of the country the
same sentiment manifested itself. A
native American movement is said to
have organized at Germantown, near
Philadelphia, in 1837, growing out of
t In New York city the Irish vote was
cast largely with the Democratic party.
Admiration for AndreTT Jackson, the hero
of Nev^.' Orleans a.nQ a man of Irish line-
age, had drawn the vanguards of Irish
immigration close in sympathy v»-ith the
Democratic party. The politicians of that
party did not fail to use every means to
attach the adopted citizen to their organi-
zation.
24
XA TI YE A MEBICA XI SM.
an election episode.
At Boston on Sunday, June 11, 1837,
an engine company returning from t-.
fire came into collision vrith an Irisli
funeral procession. The ensuing trou-
ble, which is known in the annals of
Boston as "the Broad street riot,"
was participated in by fifteen thousand,
persons. The Irish quarter was sacked,
and though there were no fatalities^
many persons were severely wounded.
The intervention of the mayor at the
head of a military company quelled
the riot. As a result of this affair, the
fire department was reorganized (Win-
sor's Boston HI, 245).
Boston had a Xativist mayor, Thom-
as Aspinwall Davis, in 1845, as a re-
sult of a triangular contest. In the
following year the control of the city
reverted to the 'WTiigs.
During the presidential campaign of
1840, the Whig central committee of
Maryland was moved to formally re-
pudiate all sympathy with the Xativist
journalism of General Duff Green, ed-
itor of The Baltimore Pilot. The com-
mittee declared that "the native and
natural citizens are equally entitled to
the blessings of our government." Ma-
25
NATIVE AMERICANISM.
ryland was, politically, a close state.
The Whigs carried the state at the
ensuing election. Similar action was
taken by a large Whig public meeting
at Louisville, Ky. (October 27, 1840).
Its resolutions recited that "a newspa-
per called The Louisville Tribune, re-
flecting on the Catholic persuasion,
of a most anti-republican character, re-
cently established in this city, profess-
ing to be a Whig paper, has published
editorials and a communication, one
of which is signed 'Native American,'
etc. The Whigs as a party, therefore,
utterly repudiate and denounce The
Louisville Tribune." (McClusky Poli-
tical Text Book, pp. 681-2.)
New Orleans felt the impulse also.
The "Address of the Louisiana Native
American association," issued in 1839,
contains this rather ornate passage:
"So long as foreigners entered in
moderate numbers into the states and
territories of the United States and be-
came imperceptibly merged and incor-
porated into the great body of the
American people, and were gradually
imbued and indoctrinated into the
principles of virtue and patriotism,
which formerly animated the whole
26
NA Tl VE A MERICANI8M.
American community, so long their ad-
vent was an advantage and a benefit to
our coranmnity. But when we see
hordes and hecatombs (sic) of beings
in human forms, but destitute of any
intellectual aspirations — the outcast
and offal of society, the pauper, the va-
grant and the convict — transported in
myriads to our shores, reeking with the
accumulated crimes of the whole civ-
ilized and savage world, and inducted
by our laws into equal rights, immuni-
ties and privileges with the noble na-
tive inhabitants of the United States,
v/e can no longer contemplate it with
supine indifference. We feel con-
strained to warn our countrymen that
unless some steps are taken to protect
our institutions from these accumu-
lated inroads on oiir national character,
from the indiscriminate immigration
and naturalization of foreigners, in
vain have our predecessors, whether na-
tive or naturalized, toiled and suffered
and fought and bled and died to
achieve our liberties and establish our
hallowed institutions."
In 1841, a state convention was called
in Louisiana to form an American Re-
publican party. The convention fa-
27
XATIVE AMERICAXISM.
vored the exclusion of foreigners from
office. It exerted some influence in
the succeeding municipal election in
Xew Orleans.]]
New York city, in 1840, had a pop-
ulation of 312,700, of whom not over a
third were foreign born. The Catho-
lic population of the city possessed
eight churches and numbered perhaps
70,000. Philadelphia, in the same
year, had a population of 258,000, of
whom less than sixty thousand were
Catholics. (Bishop Kenrick, in 1840,
placed the entire Catholic population
of Pennsylvania, Delaware and Wes-
tern Xew Jersey at 120,000.) Boston,
with a population in 1844 of about
120,000, had less than 30,000 Catholic
residents. It seemed strange, in view
of what has come to pass in later years,
that the presence in these larger cities
of a foreign population not exceeding
a fourth of the whole population,
should have occasioned alarm in the
II Congressman Eustis, of Louisiana, in
the House of Representatives, January 7,
1856. claimed that Louisiana was the first
State whose Legislature called for an ex-
tension of the term of residence required
for naturalization.
28
NATIVE AMERICANISM.
minds of Americans during the '40's.
Since these days, the increased tide of
immigration has foreignized, by actual
majorities (counting all of foreign par-
entage), most of our large cities and
even some of our western states, with-
out the slightest danger to our insti-
tutions or any similar alarm to our
people.
Had the foreigners and Catholics re-
mained quiescent, Nativism might have
run its course as a milder protest. But
this was not to be. The American at-
mosphere v:ould not suffer any element
long to demean itself as a subject
class. The colonization of the nine-
teenth century challenged, in the name
of religious equality, the Protestant as-
cendancy established by the colonists
of the seventeenth century in the laws,
and customs, and opinions of the sev-
eral states. In Massachusetts, long af-
ter the adoption of the Federal con-
stitution, Congregationialism was vir-
tually the religion of the state. In the
Carolinas a Catholic could not hold of-
fice. Other states, like New Hamp-
shire, had similar sectarian provisions
in their constitutions and statutes.
Immigration endangered this ascen-
29
NATIVE AMERICANISM.
dancy, and as soon as that fact was ap-
parent, the Protestant pnlpit became
alarmed. The particular issue in
which this clash of forces came had
reference to the schools. Under the
New York school law of 1812, denom-
inational schools received a pro rata
share of the school fund raised by the
state. But in New York city a pri-
vate corporation called the Public
School society, gradually absorbed all
the public funds for that city. It
claimed to be an unsectarian body, and
declared that it excluded positive re-
ligious instruction from its schools.
The Protestant Scriptures, however,
were read, and in some cases comment-
ed upon. The Catholics presented a pe-
tition to the Common council, and
Bishop Hughes spoke in its behalf,
praying that eight Catholic schools be
granted a share of the school fimd
(October, 1840). The Catholics do not
appear to have asked the exclusion of
the Bible, but prejudice was stirred
upon the representation that such was
their purpose.
The Common council, which was
Democratic, rejected the bishop's peti-
tion after a full hearing, in which the
30
!
NATIVE AMERICANISM.
Public School society fought strenu-
ously for its monopoly. The Catholics
thereupon carried their grievances to
the state Legislature at Albany. Wil-
liam H. Seward was then governor of
New York. He had expressed himself
in favor of the establishment of schools
where the foreigners, now debarred
from public education by religious pre-
judices, might be instructed by teach-
ers of their own race and faith. For
twenty years (1840-60) this idea of Se-
ward's made him the target of the poli-
tical anti-Catholics in New York state,
and he reciprocated that antagonism by
holding the major element of the Whig
party intact as a bulwark against the
successive waves of Nativist and
Know-Nothing assimilation.*
The Catholic appeal to the Legisla-
• Colonel A. K. McClure, in his "Political
Recollections," a&serts that Sev.^ard's atti-
tude on the school question lost him the
nomination to the Presidency in 1860; that
the leaders of the Republican party in
Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana were fav-
orable to Seward personally, but on ac-
count of his stand in the New York school
controversy they could not hope to attract
to his candidacy the anti-slavery Know-
Nothing vote in those states, which were
regarded at the time as doubtful states.
31
NATIVE AMERICANISM.
ture again stirred up a Xativist par-
ty, Samuel F. B. Morse once more oc-
cupying the leadership. All local par-
ties having taken sides with the Pub-
lic School society in the nomination
of candidates for the Legislature in
1841, Bishop Hughes decided to put up
a Catholic ticket— the so-called ''Car-
roll Hall" ticket. He did this against
the vociferous objections- of the entire
local press, Democratic as well as
TThig. The result! of the election was
as follows:
Whig ticket 15,980
Democratic ticket 15,690
Catholic ticket 2,200
Nativist ticket 470
Anti-Slavery ticket 120
It was said that Bishop Hughes
(himself, if anything, a Whig), had
sought to show to the Democrats that
the Catholics held the balance of pow-
er in New York city as between the
V»"liig and the Democratic parties. He
succeeded in the demonstration, at
least to the extent of defeating the
Democratic ticket, which would other-
wise have won. But it seems that on-
ly a half or a third of the Catholic
t See New York Tribune, Nov. 12, 1841.
32
NATIVE AMERICANISM.
voters supported the Carroll Hall tick-
et. In a Catholic population of 70,-
000, there were at that time probably
from 5,000 to 7,000 Catholic voters in
New York city.||
The following year the Legislature
at Albany, doubtless through the in-
fluence of Governor Seward, extended
to New York city the provisions of the
general act relating to common schools,
thus obliterating the private Public
School society corporation, and putting
the state and the people in its place as
a controlling power over the city
schools. This was a victory, in prin-
ciple, for Bishop Hughes, but it
brought no funds to his parish schools.
The JvTativist element of all parties
combined for some years in electing a
union school ticket.
II This Is the only instance in American
politics of a Catholic ticket at the polls. It
seemed necessary at the time to clear the
political atmosphere. Of course it did not
lack provocation either, in the existence of
a menacing' anti-Catholic movement.
33
III.
NATIVISM AT HIGH TIDE, 1844.
' I ^ HE year 1843 saw a new and better
-^ organized spurt of Nativism in
New York city. The episode that served
to arouse it was the favor shown by the
Democratic party to the Irish, in re-
turn for Irish support in the April
(1843) elections. Not only were pet-
ty offices liberally bestowed, but market
licenses were given to foreign-born
tradesnien. Heretofore these had been
(as in the case of school control), a
species of Nativist monopoly.
The American Republican party was
formed,§ and it came into the fall elec-
§ The follovN'ing appears among- the decla-
rations of the Nativist meeting held in
New, York, June 10, 1843:
"Resolved, That we as Americans will
34
NATIVE AMERICANISM.
tioiis with a statement of principles,
among which was the following :
"That through this school law [the
legislative enactment of April, 1842]
there has been a preconcerted determin-
ation, followed up by an actual attempt
in the Fourth ward, to put out of our
schools the Protestant Bible, and to
piit down the whole Protestant religion
never consent to allow the government es-
tablished by our Revolutionary forefathers
to pass into the hands of foreigners, and
that while we open the door to the op-
pressed of every nation and offer a home
and an asylum, we reserve to ourselves the
right of administering the government in
conformity with th© principles laid down
by those who have committed it to our care."
From this time on we hear much about
the degeneracy of Am^erican local politics,
due, so it is alleged, to the influence of the
foreign-born voters. There has always
been a strong suspicion that this opinion
was merely th'e result of Nativist preju-
dice. Bryce (Volume II. of his "American
Commonwealth." page 241), says: "Never-
theless the immigi-ants are not so largely
responsible for the faults of American poli-
tics as a stranger might be led, by the
language of many Americans, to suppol*.
There is a disposition in the United States
to use them, and especially the Irish, much
as the cat is used in the kitchen, to ac-
count for broken plates and food which
disappears. The cities have, no doubt, suf-
fered from the immigrants— but New York
was not an Eden before the Irish came."
35
NATIVE AMERICANISM.
[therein] as being sectarian." (Journal
of Commerce, November 4, 1843.)
The platform further demanded that
foreign-born persons should not be nat-
uralized imtil they had resided here
twenty-one years. The Nativist party
polled 8,690 votes in the November
election out of a total of 37,000. Its
strength appears to have been drawn
quite eqiTally from both parties. Ham-
mond, in his "Political History of New
York," avers that "the wealth, talent
and respectability of the community"
went into its ranks. In the ensuing
election (April, 1844), the Nativist
party selected James Harper, of the
firm of Harper Brothers, publishers, as
its candidate for mayor. Both Demo-
crats and Whigs made their customary
nominations; but tLere was a tacit un-
derstanding among the Whigs that
their support should be thrown largely
to Harper (who had been a Whig) .
Harper was electe I. The vote stood :
Harper, 24,510; Coddington (Dem.),
20,538; Franldin (Vv^hig), 5,297. The
Journal of Commerce ^ April 12, 1884),
estimated that the native American vote
was made up of 14,100 Whigs, 9,700
Democrats and 601 new voters.
36
NATIVE AMERICANISM.
Harper's election was the occasion
for a revival of the former alliance be-
tween the Whigs and the Nativist. In
the fall election of 1S44 (which was al-
so a presidential election), the Whigs
threw their strength solidly to the iSTa-
tiyist local legislative ticket, but the
Nativists did not fully reciprocate.
The Nativist legislative ticket was
elected, 27,440 to 26,230 (Dem.), but
Polk, the Democratio candidate for
president, carried New York city by
several thousand plurality over Clay.
Seward hcA openly disapproved of the
Whig alliance with the Nativists, and
this experience strengthened the posi-
tion he had taken. The Whigs proceeded
to drop the Nativists. At the city elec-
tion in April, 1845, Harper wa 3 defeat-
ed and a Democratic mayor elected,
the poll showing 24,210 Democratic
votes, 17,480 Nativist and 7,030 Whig.
The Nativists were almost completely
wiped off the official roste:-, electing
but one of their candidates, a consta-
ble. They continued to put up local
tickets until April, 1847, but their
vote diminished from 8,370 in Novem-
ber, 1845, to 2,080 in April, 1847.
They put up a state ticket in 1846,
37
NATIVE AMERICANISM.
whicli received an aggregate of 6,170
Totes.
Bishop Hughes in an editorial pub-
lished February 3, 1844, in a weekly
paper. The Freeman's Journal, regard-
ed as the organ of the diocese, had al-
luded to the new party as a movement
in 'local politics." "Many will prob-
ably join this party, who are really
friends of foreigners," he said, " but
who, for the moment, will coalesce with
their enemies to accomplish some local
purpose, of which foreigners form no
part. The true issue is for the loaves
and fishes of office, and as but a small
share of these, if any, falls to the lot
of foreigners, so, notwithstanding the
abuse of their name, they may consid-
er themselves as scarcely interested in
the quarrel. The true issue is between
natives and natives; there let it re-
main."
The school question was also one of
the mainsprings of the Nativist move-
ment in Philadelphia. In this connec-
tion it may be remarked that in the
many subsequent clashes with Protes-
tant ascendancy, of which the New
York and Philadelphia instances were
38
NATIVE AMERICANISM.
among the earliest, the Catholic con-
tention was, ultimately, almost every-
where successful, because it was
grounded on the logic of religious
equality.
If the Maine supreme court in 1854
(Donohue vs. Richards) decided that
Catholic pupils in the public schools
might be compelled to read the King
James Bible, the victory of sectarian-
ism was only temporary; the decision
of the Wisconsin supreme court in
1890 (Edgerton Bible case) brought to
a climax a series of educational rul-
ings, both in law and practice, which
have quite generally excluded the Bible
from the public schools and more or less
eliminated the offensive tone to Catho-
lics of many of the text books, against
which there were mild protests in 1840.
In November, 1842, Bishop Kenrick
of Philadelphia, while not asking that
the Bible be excluded from the public
schools of that city, petitioned the
School Board that Catholic children be
allowed the liberty of using the Catho-
lic version where Bible reading was
prescribed.
In January, 1843, the Philadelphia
School Board voted that no children
39
XATIVE AMERICANISM.
whose parents objected to Bible read-
ing be obliged to be present at Bible
exercises. Out of this matter a con-
troversy ensued, and Bishop Kenrick,
on March 12, 1844, issued a statement
that "Catholics have not asked that the
Bible be excluded from the public
schools."
The Philadelphia riots of May, lS4r4,
are connected with this episode, at
least in the opinion of the grand jury
called to investigate the affair. The
grand jury attributed the riots to "the
efforts of a portion of the community
to exclude the Bible from the public
school." The Catholics denied this
and claimed the jury was packed. But
the charge, even as it stands, would
not in our day seem to justify or pro-
voke rioting or incendiarism. The dis-
order arose over some collision in the
streets as a Xative-American meeting
was dispersing before a rain storm.
The riots which followed lasted for
three days. Though the Mayor was
knocked down in one of the encounters,
it is probably true, as the Catholics al-
leged, that there was half-heartedness,
if not actual collusion, in the way the
authorities met the disorder. The mob
40
XA TIVE AMERICANISM.
moved upon the Irish quarter in Ken-
sington and burned twenty-nine
houses. Next day two Catholic
churches, St. Michael's and St. Au-
gustine's, were destroyed and a convent
set ablaze. A number of lives were
lost. Bishop Kenrick issued a card
suspending "the exercise of public wor-
ship in the Catholic churches which
still remained until it can be resumed
with safety and we can enjoy our con-
stitutional rights to v.-orship God ac-
cording to the dictates of our consci-
ence."
This was, at least, furnishing sub-
ject of meditation for the thoughtful.
The May riots were succeeded in July
by another riotous outbreak. The Na-
tivist sentiment profited by the public
feeling against the foreigners, which
had been aroused by the events of May.
Their societies were nov.- established in
every ward of the city. On July 4,
1844, they organized an elaborate par-
ade in which 4,500 men and boys par-
ticipated. During the succeeding
days a report became current that anus
were hidden in St. Philip Neri's
(Catholic) church. There was founda-
tion for this report too. Catholics had
41
NATIVE AMERICANISM.
feared that the church burning of May
might be repeated. They intended to
defend their property. The collision
of July was principally between the
militia and the nativist mobs. It re-
sulted in seventeen deaths.
Nativism remained for some years
a political power in Philadelphia.
The local leader of the party
was Lewis C. Levin, by birth a
South Carolinian, a man of stout
build and florid eloquence. For
three terms he sat as a representative
of the first Pennsylvania district in
Congress where he made many impas-
sioned anti-Catholic speeches. Levin
died in 1860. Throughout the country
generally, however, the Philadelphia
riots gave Nativism a set back. The
popular verdict blamed the anti-Cath-
olics. General Cadwalader, who had
commanded the soldiers during the
riots, some years afterwards stated in
a public letter that the Nativists came
to be generally known as the "the
church burners," in the epithet parlance
of the day.*
*Scisco, "Political Nativism in New
York," page 47, says: "The Philadelphia
riotS', nevertheless, lost much sympathj' to
42
XATIVE AMERICANISM.
In New York, Bishop Hughes, ad-
monished by these events, took legal
advice as to whether compensation
could be obtained for property destroy-
ed by rioters. Being advised in the
negative, he said: "Then the law in-
tends that citizens should defend their
own property." He issued an fextra
edition of The Freeman's Journal,
calling on Catholics to defend their
churches with their lives. The Native-
Amei-icans, who had called a public
meeting, revoked their call in view of
thie action. Bishop O'Gorman ("His-
tory Catholic Church," p. 375) tells us
that a large Irish society in New York,
with divisions in every district, re-
solved that, in case a single Catholic
church were destroyed, to fire buildings
in all quarters and involve the city in
a great conflagration.
Though the field of its action was
mostly confined to local politics, the
Native-American movement had some
results in the broader arena (1830-45).
"\i\liile most of the foreign-born vote
was Democratic, the Whigs were not
the cause of Nativism, and their occur-
rence was deeply regretted."
43
NATIVE AMERICANISM.
without a share of it. Bishop Hughes,
for instance, tells us that his first vote
was cast for Henry Clay. In the cam-
paign of 1840, the Democratic leaders
of New York corralled almost the sol-
id naturalized vote by representing thai
Harrison was opposed to the "adopted
citizen." This provoked Whig resent-
ment. "Do we not hear of the organ-
ization of a party against the Catho-
lics ?" wrote Seward to a friend in 1840.
Some of the "Whig leaders, like Clay,
Scott and Fillmore, undoubtedly sym-
pathized with the principles of the Xa-
tive-American party. In 1844 Clay
wrote to a friend: "There is a general
tendency among the Whigs to unfurl
the banner of the Xative-Americau
party" (Von Hoist II., 524). Scott in
The National Intelligencer (December,
1844), advocated the practical exclu-
sion of all foreign-bom persons from
the suffrage.! Later he claimed that
the iLexican war had removed the cata-
ract from liis eyes. (Yon Hoist, lY.,
tBro-vSTison in his Quarterly Re\aew for
January, 1845, refers disparagingly to a
speech by Webster at Faneuil hall, in
which he thinks that this man of "trans-
cendant abilities" pandered to the Xati-
vist feeling.
44
XATIVE AMEBICANIS2I.
158).
New York was a pivotal state in the
Presidential election held in Novem-
ber, 1844. Polk polled just 5,106 more
votes in New York than Clay, and this
gave him New York's thirty-six elec-
toral votes, and the Presidency. Mil-
lard Fillmore, in a letter to Clay, at-
tributed the loss of New York to
Catholic defection from the "Whigs, oc-
casioned by the affiliation of Native-
Americanism with that party. Anti-
Masonry had deprived Clay of the
Presidential nomination in 1840, and
between Native-Americanism and the
Liberal party he lost the election in
1844. But the resentment of the natu-
ralized voters was not all due, proper-
ly, to the "Whigs. The aid of a fair
percentage of the Democratic party al-
ways went to the proscriptive ticket.
In the fall election of 1844 this Demo-
cratic contingent, while voting general-
ly for the Polk electors, in Philadelphia
and New York enabled the Native-
Americans to elect their local tickets.
In April, 1845, the Nativist move-
ment claimed 48,000 members in New
York State (of whom 18,000 were in
New York city), 42,000 in Pennsyl-
45
NATIVE AMERICANISM^
vania, 14,000 in Massachusetts and
6,000 scattered in other states.
(Kochester American, April 26, 1845).
A convention of the Native-Americans
convened at Philadelphia July 4, 1845,
with 141 delegates present, represent-
ing fourteen states. It adopted a na-
tional platform and an address to the
people. A second national convention
met May 4, 1847, at Pittsburg, with
eleven states represented. At its sec-
ond session at Philadelphia, Septem-
ber 10, 1847, it recommended Zachary
Taylor for President.
Six Native-American Congi-es;s-
men, (four from New York and two
from Pennsylvania) were elected to the
Twenty-ninth Congress (1845). But one
Native- American Congi-essman appear-
ed in the Thirtieth Congress and ucnie
in the Thirty-first.
The Mexican war had come and gone
(1846-8). A great event had set new
currents afloat. Native-Americnnism
began to disappear. Both parties were
again courting the naturalized citizen
whom the Irish famine was sending to
our shores in vaster numbers. Candi-
dates were found purging themselves
from the suspicion of affiliation with
46
NATIVE AMERICANISM.
Nativism. Even Scott, the Whig can-
didate for President in 1852, said
peccavi. In the lull which followed
the prostration of the Whigs a new
form of the old movement was, how-
ever, starting into vigorous growth.
This was Know-Nothingism.
47
The Know-Nothing Party.
ORIGIN AXD GROWTH.
THE Know-Xothing order was the
outgrowth, in form and member-
ship, of a number of nativist secret so-
cieties, which came into being during
the years 1845-9. In Pennsylvania,
the order of United American Mechan-
ics, which restricted its membership to
native-born Americans, had considera-
ble strength. The order of Sons of
America, organized aboiit the year
1845, at Philadelphia, also acquired a
large following, and even extended its
branches to New York. Pennsylvania
gave birth also to the American Prot-
49
THE ENOW-NOTHING PARTY.
estant Association, a secret benevolent
society composed of Protestant Irish.
This association also extended to New
York. In 1853 it had several thousand
members.
The Order of United Americans was
established in New York about the
year 1845, and it soon became the
strongest of the nativistifl. societies.
At the beginning of 1847, it had about
2,000 members, and in 1848 it had ex-
tended to Boston and organized itself at
points in New Jersey and Pennsylva-
nia. Though ostensibly a social and
beneficial society, it now began to be
active in promoting, in a secret way,
certain political measures^ and New
York politicians were not slow to de-
tect its influence.
Meanwhile, in the spring of 1850,
Charles B. Allen had organzied
the order of "the Star Span-
gled Banner," sometimes known as the
order of "the Sons of the Sires," its
purpose not being specifically social and
benevolent, like the other nativist secret
societies, but more definitely designed
to influence, by concerted action, local
elections.
Early in 1852, this new secrtit society
50
THE ENOW-NOTHING PARTY.
received a large increase of member-
ship, drawn mostly from the Order of
United Americans. It at once began
to take a hand in politics. And this
was the beginning of the Know-Noth-
ing oi'der.'^
Bolh the Order of United Americans
ai.'! •"''-' Knovz-Nothing order, otherwise
kno^vTi as the order of the Star Span-
gled Banner, then began a career of
rapid expansion. In 1856, the Order of
*So far as primary sources of history
are concerned, we have very little to aid
us in tracing the course of the Know-Noth-
ing movement. If even the records of so
late a movement as the American Protec-
tive Association have been burned (as its
founder, H. F. Bowers, informs me), what
can we expect as to the records of a secret
movement of fifty years ago? Scisco (Po-
litcal Nativism in New York, p. 255), says:
"The great Know-Nothing order has left
hardly a trace of itself in the way of rec-
ords." The records of the Know-Nothing
grand council, after passing from one
grand secretary- to another, have disap-
peared. The private papers of James W.
Barker, for many years the Know-Nothing
leader, and of Erastus Brooks, a later
leader, cannot be found, or are unavail-
able. Some of the records of the order
of the United Americans were burned.
Contemporaneous manuals and defenses
of the American party, like the volumes of
Whitney, Carroll and Lee, seem to con-
ceal more than they reveal.
51
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
United Americans had extended to six-
teen states, and it had on its rolls sev-
eral hundred thousand members. The
order of the Star Spangled Banner, or
the Know-Nothing order proper, had,
meanwhile, far out-stripped the Order
of United Americans. The name of
Thomas K. Whitney is associated with
the growth of the Order of United
Americans. He was its grand sachem
for the state of New York in the year
1846, and again in 1853. He was also
the author of a book in defense of the
Know-Nothing movement.
The more active political element of
the Order of United Americans began
to flock into the order of the Star Span-
gled Banner during the year 1853.
The new order began to be active in
seeking to control party caucusses
and party conventions. Then, after
the old parties made the nominations,
the order of the Star Spangled Banner
proceeded to elect its ticket from the
Democratic and the Whig tickets.
November 10, 1853, The New York
Tribune referred to the new secret influ-
ence in politics, which had been exert-
ing itself for some months, as "the
Know-Nothing order." The New York
52
TEE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
press explained, as the reason for the
name, the fact that members of the
order, when questioned, professed to
"know nothing" about it.*
By the fall of 1853, the Know-Noth-
ing order had organized branches in
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland,
Connecticut and Massachusetts, and
had extended as far west as Ohio.
While Charles B. Allen was the
founder, James W. Barker was the
man most conspicuous in the up-build-
ing of the Know-Nothing order, es-
pecially in New York; and up to 1856
he was its official head in that state.
Barker had been a dry goods merchant
in New York in the years prior to 1851.
He threw himself into the new nativist
movement with all the zeal and energy
that he possessed. We are told that
♦Lee in his "History of the American Par-
ty," page 200 says: "Whether the Ameri-
can Associations are reallj- secret associa-
tions or not Is a question concerning which
the writer pretends to know nothing." The
new movement itself accepted in a certain
way the "Know-Nothing" appellation.
Thus we find one of its publications en-
titled "The Know-Nothing Calendar and
True American Almanac for 1856," edited
by W. S. Tisdale, Esq.; and also "The
Wide-Awake Gift and Know-Xothing Tok-
en for (1855)," by 'One of 'Em.' "
53
TEE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
in 1859 he left New York and again
embarked in the dry goods business in
the city of Pittsburg.
The Know-Nothing order was not a
mutual aid or beneficial society, but its
primary aim was political. It had the
usual pass-words, grips and ritual of a
secret society. There were three de-
grees with appropriate obligations and
advantages.
Those inducted into the first degree
do not appear to have been informed as
to the name of the order. They were
brought into "the august presence of
Sam." Their oath recited, among oth-
er things, "that you will not vote or
give your influence for any man for
any ofiice in the gift of the people, un-
less he be an American-born citizen,
in favor of Americans ruling America,
nor if he be a Koman Catholic." Mem-
bers of the first degree were not eligi-
ble for ofiice in the order, nor on its po-
litical tickets. Members of the second
degree took an oath, one of the obliga-
tions of which recited "that if it may
be done legally, you will, when elected
or appointed to any official station con-
ferring on you the power to do so,
64
THE ENOW-NOTHING PARTY.
remove all foreigners, aliens or Ro-
man Catholics from office or place, and
that you will, in no case, appoint such
to any office or place in your gift; you
do also promise and swear that this
and all other obligations which you
have previously taken in this order,
shall ever be kept, through life, sacred
and inviolate."
These extracts are from the ritual
said to be revised by the national coun-
cil held in Cincinnati on November
15, 1854. There were earlier publica-
tions of the oaths varying in their
texts, but quite similar in their gen-
eral antagonism to naturalized citizens
and Catholics*
The third degree, as revised by the
national council November, 1854, was
the so-called "Union degree," pledging
members to support the ties which bind
together the states of the union and
to oppose all men and measures adverse
*The constitution and ritual of the Amer-
ican party are publiElied in full in N. W.
Cluskey's "Political Text Book and En-
cyclopedia" (1858) pp. 55-68. Also in Coop-
er's "American Politics" (1882) p. 57. Scis-
co's account of the Know-Nothing de-
grees and ritual is drawn largely from
the newspapers of the daj\
55
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
to the union, and to vote for third or
union degree members of the order in
preference to all other candidates for
political office.
The basis of the EJaow-jSTothing or-
ganization was the ward or district
council. In the large cities there was
a superior council made up of delegates
from the ward covmcils. The "grand
council" was the state council made up
of three delegates from each council
of the order within the state. The na-
tional council, which was the supreme
authority in the order, was made up
of delegates from various states in
which the order existed on ' a basis
proportionate to the state membership.
The Know-Nothing order sought to
keep from outsiders not only the iden-
tity of its membership, but even the
fact of its existence. Its notices of
meeting, or calls for concert of action
were bits of paper cut in different
shapes or varying in color for different
puiTDOses.
The leading circumstances and in-
fluences which contributed to the
growth of the Know-Nothing move-
ment may be briefly indicated as fol-
66
THE KXOW-XOTHIXG PARTY.
lows:
(1) Undoubtedly, the nativist sen-
timent, about which the whole move-
ment swung, not only gave the party
its form, but in a large degree was the
cohesive influence which held together
the principal element of its member-
ship.
(2) The movement was launched
after the overwhelming Whig defeat of
1852. That election seemed to many
the end of all hope for the Whig par-
ty; the time for it and its friends to
quit the political field. There ensued
also a lessening of the ties of allegiance
to party among the northern Demo-
crats, due to the subserv^iency of
Pierce's administration to the slavocra-
cy. The thousands of voters cast
adrift, so to speak, from their party
affiliations, were easily attracted by the
standards of the new movement. Had
the Republican party been launched as
early as 1853 or 1854, its sails might
have been filled with the new breeze,
but as it was not there, the Know-Xoth-
ing movement had the chance of the
hour all to itself.
(3) The attractiofi of the secret so-
ciety and the mystery of the movement
57
TEE KXOW-XOTHIXG PARTY.
undoubtedly won to the Know-Nothing
party thousands of Americans who had
no special devotion to its more fanati-
cal purpose.
(4) Its growth in the south and its
absorption there of the Whig party,
were altogether matters of political cal-
culation. The southern "WTiigs thought
that the sweep which the new party
had won (1854-5) in the middle and
Xew England states, promised a vic-
tory at the aprroaching presidential
election in 1856. The southern Whigs
thought they were getting on the load-
ed wagon. Except in Baltimore, Louis-
ville and Xew Orleans, there was, south
of Mason and Dixon's line, little chance
for collision with foreign-born citizens,
as few of them had settled there.
Southern politicians, however, might
reason themselves opposed to foreign
immigration, inasmuch as coniining
itself almost entirely to the north, it
swelled the congressional representa-
tion of the northern states.
(6) Another element drawn into
the EJnow-jSTothing party, especially the
latter years of its existence, consisted
of those who preferred to evade the sla-
very question, the "dough-faces," so-
58
TEE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
called, in the political parlance of tha
times, — those who relied upon the con-
stitution and who proclaimed their de-
votion to the union, vainly supposing
that by taking such a stand they could
postpone the irrepressible conflict on
the slavery issue. The American par-
ty, virtually straddled the slavery ques-
tion : and this attitude undoubtedly at-
tracted to its ranks thousands of those
who wished to take middle ground. In
its last years, so far as it existed as a
power in the politics of the country, it
was not a middle state party, but a bor-
der state party.
r9
n.
HIGH TIDE (1854-5).
IN his history of the Rise and
Fall of the Slave Power (chap-
ter 32), Henry Wilson, who had
himself joined the Know-Nothing
order, says: "In the year 1863, a se-
cret order was organized by a few men
in New York city. Its professed pur-
pose was to check foreign influence,
purify the ballot box and rebuke the ef-
fort to exclude the Bible from the pub-
lic schools." Scisco, a more careful
historian, at least in the matter of
dates, (Political Nativism, p 97), re-
ports :
"By May 1, 1853, there existed in
New York state fifty-four scattered
bodies, most of which were located in
New York city or in the counties lying
adjacent, where Nativistic sentiment
had been fostered by the O. U. A. and
60
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
other Nativistic societies. The spring
elections of 1854 gave opportunities for
the rural bodies to use their power, but
nowhere does their presence seem to
have attracted notice except in New
York and Westchester counties."*
But local elections in the early
months of 1854, in several adjoining
states showed that the order was not
♦Whitney, in his "Defence of the Ameri-
can Policy," (p. 284), says that state coun-
cils of the order of the United Americans
were organized in New York, New Jersey,
Maryland, Connecticut, Massachmsetts,
Pennsylvania and Ohio during the months
April to December, 1853; in Washington. D.
C, New Hampshire, Indiana, Rhode Island
and Maine during the months January to
April, 1854; in Illinois, Michigan. Iowa and
Wisconsin from May to September, 1854.
State councils were organized in the fol-
lowing southern states chiefly during the
latter part of 1854: Alabama. Georgia,
North Carolina, South Carolina, Kentucky.
Missouri, Tennessee, "Virginia, Delaware.
Mississippi, Texas. Florida, Arkansas and
Louisiana. In the fall of 1854 state councils
were organized in California and Oregon.
A state council was formed in Minnesota
in May, 1855, and about the same time in
New Mexico, Kansas and Nebraska. Thus,
(says Whitney) , in about three years from
the organization cf the first counf'I th' or-
der was organized in every state and terri-
tory in the Union, "numbering In its mem-
bership at least one and one half million
legal voters."
61
TEE EXO}y-XOTniXG PARTY.
only widely diffused, but so numerical-
ly strong, as to indicate that it had
been organized for some time in these
localities. There is some authority for
the statement that was introduced in
Baltimore in December, 1852. Salem
(in January), Worcester and several
other Massachusetts towns were car-
ried by its silent influence in the spring
election of 1854. At Philadelphia, it
surprised the Democrats, (May, 1854),
by electing the Whig candidate for May-
or, Conrad, by eight thousand plurality.
Mayor Conrad proceeded openly to affili-
ate with the American party. About the
same time Washing-ton went under the
Know-Xothing yoke and Baltimore
followed.
In 1853-4 the Know-Nothing par-
ty acted largely upon the following
formally adopted policy:
"Rule Nine: Whenever it shall be
deemed necessary for the order to aid
in the choice of men for public office
through the suffrages of the people, it
chall be the duty of each executive com-
mittee to call together the members of
the Order in their district prior to the
usual primary elections or nominations,
and determine upon suitable candidates
62
THE EXO^Y-XOTHING PARTY.
of each party or either, as they may de-
termine. It will be the duty of the
members to assemble at the times and
places of holding the primary meetings
of such party or parties, and there use
their influence in obtaining the nom-
ination of the candidates they have se-
lected. If the nominations are secured
and ratified our cause will triumph,
whichever party may be successful.
Should the members of the Order nom-
inate or select candidates already in
the field, nominated by on© party only,
it will be the duty of every brother to
sustain that selection independent of
any party consideration." (Scisco Pol-
itical Nativism, p 80.)
In the congressional elections of 1851
— at which time the new power in poli-
tics became the sensation of the hour —
this rule was quite generally followed.
The Know-Xothings — throughout the
north — supported Whig, Eepublicans
and anti-Xebraska Democratic candi-
dates for congress, who were privately
pledged to so-called "American ideas.''
When the congress thus elected met for
its first session in December, 1855, there
were over a hundred congressmen from
the north classified as Eepublicans;
63
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
they voted for the Republican candi-
date for speaker, N. P. Banks, but Hor-
ace Greeley, (writing at the time to
Charles A. Dana,) said:
''The majority of the Banks men
are now members of Know-jSTothing
councils, and some twenty or thirty of
them actually believe in the swindle.
Half the Massachusetts delegation,
two-thirds that of Ohio, and nearly all
that of Pennsylvania are Know-Noth-
ings this day. We shall get them grad-
ually detached." (Quoted in Rhodes
History of the United States, Vol. II.
p. 111.)
The manner in which the new power
in politics set the tongue of the nation
wagging over its entry into the
arena was not through the silent
influence it exerted in selecting
congressmen, but by the showing it
made with candidates of its own
for governor in New York and Massa-
chusetts. Its candidate for governor
in New York (in the fall of 1854), was
a man little known, and no open cam-
paign work was done in his behalf, nor
did any influential paper support him.
Its candidate for governor in Massa-
chusetts was a broken down Whig poli-
64
TEE EXOW-XOTHIXG PARTY.
tician, whose appearance in the cam-
paign was referred to by one of the
leading Boston dailies as a joke.
To the surprise of everybody, it poll-
ed 122,000 votes for its candidate for
governor of New York. Seymour, the
Democratic candidate, had 156,495
votes, and Clarke, the "Whig candidate,
who was elected, had 156,804. In ilas-
sachusetts, Henry J. Gardner, the
Know-Nothing candidate was elected
governor by 50,000 majority, and the
Know-Nothings elected both houses of
the Legislature almost to a man. Del-
aware was also carried by the E[iiow-
Nothings.
These victories greatly accelerated
the numerical growth of the order in
the north and caused it to spread like
wild fire through the south.
By March, 1855, J. W. Barker, the
head of the order in New York, re-
ported that there were nine hundred
and sixty councils of the American par-
ty in his state alone. Its prospects
were such that its success in the com-
ing presidential election was seriously
canvassed. The Worcester Evening
Journal claimed that it would sweep
the north and carry there more than
65
THE EXOW-XOTHIXG PARTY.
enough electoral votes to secure the
presidency. The New York Herald
about the same time, (cited by Hamble-
ton, History of the Political Campaign
of Virginia in 1855, page 251), editor-
ially declared that the American party
would triumph in the coming presi-
dential election if it could divest it-
self of its abolitionist handicap.
The Herald estimated the Know-
Nothing votes at 1,375,000. Henry Wil-
son thinks they numbered not less than
1,250,000.
Viewing this episode in American
politics, thirty years after, Bryce, the
English historian (American Common-
wealths II. p. 291), is moved to say:
"They [The Americans] are a
changeful people. The Native Ameri-
can, or so-called Know-Nothing par-
ty, had, in two years from its founda-
tion, become a tremendous force rising,
and seeming likely for a time to carry
its own presidential candidate. In
three years more it was dead without
a hope of revival."
But shrewd American political lead-
ers, even while Know-Nothingism was
at its high tide had forecasted its early ■
disruption. Greeley's famous dictum:
66
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
"It [Know-Nothingism] would seem
as devoid of the elements of persistence
as an anti-cholera or anti-potato rot
party" was written long prior to 1856.
Though the mortal hurts that the
Know-Nothing movement received had
been dealt in May and June, 1855, it
still appeared to be ascendant in the
fall elections of that year. It carried
Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Khode
Island and Connecticut, electing- the
governors and legislatures in all these
states and it elected the minor state of-
ficers voted for in the New York state
election. It also elected its candidates
for governor in Kentucky and Califor-
nia. It carried the legislature in Mary-
land and elected some minor candidates
on the ticket which it put up in Texas.
In Virginia, Alabama, Louisiana,
Georgia, Mississippi and Texas it was
beaten only by a close vote. The Dem-
ocrats retained these states by majori-
ties ranging from 2,000 to 10,000.
Meanwhile there occurred the signal
defeat of the Know-Nothing ticket iu
the Virginia state election of May,
1855 and the split over the slavery issue
in the Philadelphia convention of the
67
TEE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
American party in June, 1855. These
two events, together with the rise of the
Republican party, presaged the rapid
decline of the Know-Nothing move-
ment.
Virginia was a debatable state —
usually Democratic, but always so
on a narrow margin. The state
elections of 1855 were to deter-
mine whether the American par-
ty in absorbing the Whig party had
strengthened or weakened the opposi-
tion to the Democratic party in the
south. It was a very bitter struggle.
The Democratic candidate for Gover-
nor, Henry A. Wise, made a vigorous
denunciation of Know-Nothingism the
feature of his campaign. He went from
one end of the state to the other, deliv-
ering fifty speeches during the canvass.
It was one of the record campaigns of
the time. The attention of the whole
country was drawn to this election.
Great sums of money were wagered up-
on the result. Wise was elected by 10,-
000 majority.
Commenting on the Virginia elec-
tion, the iSTew York Tribune of May
29, 1855, said that it "had rung the
knell" of Know-Nothingism in the
68
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
South. It was reasoned that as a vote
getter, the new party could not do much
better in the slave states than the old
Whig party had done.
Following this reverse came the split
in the National Council of the Know-
Nothing party which met at Philadel-
phia on June 5, 1855. The slavery is-
sue had to be met in some way and a
committee on resolutions had the sub-
ject up for three days discussion. Fin-
ally the majority of the committee rec-
ommended that Congress ought not to
prohibit slavery in any territory and
that it had no power to exclude any
state from coming into the Union, be-
cause the state constitution recognized
slavery. Delegates from thirteen free
states brought in a minority report and
another three days discussion followed,
Henry Wilson leading the anti-slavery
forces; but the Southern view triumph-
ed by a vote of 80 to 59.*
Thereupon the delegates from Maine,
New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachu-
setts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Ohio,
*B. B. Bartlett, of Kentucky, superseded
J. W. Barker of New York, a» President of
the order, although Barker, who wa^' a
candidate for re-election, trimmed to the
southern view of the slavery issue.
69
TB^ KXOW-WOTHJme PAMTF.
-lii^y.'fi. MidogBB, miBois, Iqwa and
-r* ifce OBaDnaBiiaBL
i3Bned. an
^
ni.
DIST^EBAyCEA^^:) ACEI3I0^'T.
o
,XE of the i:i:ema: troubles of the
Catholic Ch-ireh in the U-itei
States during the year 5ub=e3-ient to
1520, was the "trustee'" system, where-
by the lay trustees of many of the con-
gregations assumed to a le^ or greater
extent the authority to accept or re-
ject the priests sent to minister over
the congregation by the bishop, and to
regulate the affairs of the parish in a
manner that sometimes bron^t them
into collision with the epia»pal au-
thority. Out of this conflict grew two
incidents which gave the Know-Xoth-
ing moTement a decided impetus.
The Pope sent Archbishop Bedini
as papal nuncio to Brazil in 1853, and
because of some troubles with church
trustees in Buffalo and Philadelphia,
Msgr. Bedini was requested by the
71
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
Pope to visit the United States on his
way and endeavor to adjust these dif-
ficulties. He called on President
Pierce at Washington bearing a let-
ter, the intent of which was to give
him standing as one of the diplomatic
corps. At that time the United States
had a minister accredited to the Pope,
as temporal ruler of the Papal states,
and there could be no objection, in in-
ternational law, to the Pope accredit-
ing a diplomatic representatives of his
own to the United States. However,
objection was interposed by the Amer-
ican state department to the reception
of Msgr. Bedini as a diplomatic agent
on the ground that he was not a lay-
man.
There was then in the United States
an ex-monk (a Barnabite) from Italy
named Gavazzi, delivering about the
country such lectures as a typical "ex-
priest" is in the habit of presenting to
the credulous American Protestant.
Gavazzi had assailed Bedini, calling
attention to his conduct as papal gov-
ernor of Bologna during the troublous
times of 1848, and his severity towards
the revolutionists. The American press
was inclined to assist the anti-Bedini
72
TEE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
feeling aroused by Gavazzi; and un-
friendly crowds awaited the papal
nuncio's coming in various cities. At
Cincinnati, especially, there was a
threatening demonstration, a howling
mob of two thousand people moving
upon the house of the archbishop. The
militia were called out, and except for
this and the prompt action of local au-
thorities, incendiarism and murder
would have resulted, for there were
leaders desirous of making an exam-
ple out of the incident b;- hanging
Msgr. Bedini. In some places, as in
Baltimore, where he was hanged in
effigy, he was obliged to conceal his
presence. He left the country with-
out settling the disputes in question.
The other incident was a discussion
between Senator Brooks of the New
York Legislature and Bishop Hughes
(who signed himself "►J^John, bishop
of the province of New York") .
Brooks made some extravagant asser-
tions as to the value of Catholic church
property, incident to the discussion of
a bill pending in the legislature,
v.diich sought to regulate the tenure
thereof. The measure advocated by
Senator Brooks was passed.
73
THE KXOW-XOTHIXa PARTY.
It provided that no title to real
property could be conveyable or de-
scendible by an ecclesiastic to his suc-
cessor in office (Laws of 1855, Chapter
230). The intent of the measure,
doubtless, was to compel Catholic bish-
ops to divest themselves of the title
to church property, and to vest the
same in civil corporations. Because of
so many difficulties with lay trustees,
this plan was obnoxious to them. Sub-
sequently, in the history of the Cath-
olic Church, a policy in favor of plac-
ing all church property under protec-
tion of legal incorporation was, how-
ever, adopted. In the Third Plenary
council of Baltimore this change was
urged by the bishops. In 1863, a spe-
cial act for the incorporation of Cath-
olic church property was placed upon
the Xew York statutes (ch. 45, Laws of
1S63). At present, uncer the laws of
several of the states. Catholic bishops
are either authorized to act as corpor-
ations sole, for the purpose of hold-
ing real estate, or the Xew York sys-
tem for the incorporation of the local
churches with the bishop, the vicar-
general, the pastor and two laymen as
the board of directors, is followed.
THE EXOW-XOTEIXG PARTY.
The riotous events which signalized
the visit of Archbishop Bedini contin-
ued during the ensuing year, largely
excited by anti-Popery street preach-
ers. The "Angel Gabriel," an ec-
centric Scotch anti-Popery speaker,
was at work in New England in 1851,
and numerous anti-Catholic distur-
bances resulted. A Know-Xothing mob
made an attack upon the Irish quarter
in Chelsea. In June, 1854, the Cath-
olic chapel at Coburg was burned. In
the early part of July, the Dorchester
Catholic chapel was blown up by the
Know-Nothings. A little Catholic
church at Bath, in Maine, was burned
to the ground. A mob paraded the
streets of Manchester, N. H., tore the
American flag from the priest's house
and wrecked the interior of the Cath-
olic church. At Ellsworth, Me., Fath-
er Bapst, the Catholic priest, was tak-
en from his dwelling and tarred and
feathered.
These events excited Catholic ap-
prehension in all parts of the country,
and the business of guarding the
Catholic churches from incendiarism
and mob violence became a serious pur-
pose with them. At Providence, E. I.,
75
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
in the same year, a Know-Nothing mob,
led by a notorious criminal, attacked
the Convent of Mercy, but the damage
was slight, as the Catholics rallied for
the protection of the institution. Au-
gust 7 and 8, St. Louis was the scene
of a riot precipitated by the Know-
Nothings, which resulted in ten
deaths and the destruction of a number
of houses of Catholics. The election
riots at Baltimore, and "Bloody Mon-
day" at Louisville will be elsewhere
noted. At Washington a Know-Noth-
ing mob forced its way into a shed
near the Washington monument and
captured a block of marble, taken
from the temple of Concord at Rome,
which had been sent by the Pope as
a tribute to be used in the monument
then being erected to Washington.
This papal gift was thrown into the
Potomac.
One of the earliest outcroppings of
Know-Nothingism in New York trans-
pired over the case of a street preach-
er named Daniel Parsons, who had
been indulging in bitter anti-Popery
speeches on Sundays about the wharves
and docks. The authorities placed him
under arrest. Immediately there was
76
TEE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
a movement of protest from the Know-
Nothings. A great meeting was called
in the City Hall park. Thousands were
present, and James W. Barker, the
Know-Nothing leader, presided. Par-
sons was released and went on with his
work.
On the first Sunday of June, 1854,
an anti-Catholic preacher was escorted
through Brooklyn by a Know-Nothing
mob of 5,000. This no-Popery demon-
stration collided with an Irish mob,
and a free fight ensued. On the fol-
lowing Sunday the disturbance was re-
newed.
During the spring of 1854, a yotmg
man named Patten, organized in New
York a nativist secret society for
younger men. They were known as the
Order of the American Star, and some-
times as The Wide-Awakes, from their
rallying cry. This organization at-
tended to all street disturbances on be-
half of the order. Their white felt
"wide-awake" hats were recognized as
the insignia of their belligerant pur-
pose.
In Massachusetts, one of the first
acts of the Know-Nothing governor,
Gardner, in 1855, was to disband all
77
TEE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
militia companies in which foreigners
predominated. These included six
Irish-American companies, the Colum-
bus, Webster and Shields National
guards of Boston, Jackson guards of
Lowell, Union guards of Lawrence and
Jackson guards of Worcester.
All through the years 1853 and 1854
the anti-Catholic propaganda was fed
by a remarkable crop of sensational
sermons, pamphlets and novels, and the
republication of numerous works )f
evangelical bigotry dating from the
epoch of Catholic emancipation (1829 \
In many places throughout the north
the children of Irish parentage attend-
ing the common schools, were subjected
during these years to various kinds of
petty persecution. On the school
grounds they were hooted as "Paddies,"
text-books were utilized to disparage
their religion, but the most usual form
of annoyance had reference to Bible
reading. Numerovis cases of this kind
went into the courts; that of Donohue
vs. Richards, which transpired at Ells-
worth, Me., in 1854, where a Catholic
pupil was subjected to corporal punish-
ment for declining to read the Protes-
tant scriptures, being the most notable.
78
TEE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
It is to the credit of our courts that
the narrow-minded position of the \
Maine Supreme bench in this case did
not receive the approval, subsequently,
of any court of final resort. Later in
the fifties, a hundred Catholic children
of the Elliot school in Boston were ex-
pelled because they refused in a body
to participate in Protestant prayers
and Bible reading. In 1859, Principal
Cooke of one of the Boston school?,
severely punished Thomas J. Whall, a
Catholic pupil, who had declined to re-
cite the Ten Commandments according
to the King James version. The case
went into one of the local courts, but
without redress to the plaintiff.
In 1853 and 1854 the Know-Nothings
used secret machinery to interfere with
and disturb the political meetings of
their opponents of other parties.
George W. Julian tells us : "If a meet-
ing was called to oppose and denounce
its schemes, it was drowned in the
Know-Nothing flood which, at the ap-
pointed time, completely overwhelmed
the helpless minority. This happened
in my own county and town, where
thousands of men, including many of
my own Free Soil brethren, assembled
79
THE KN OAT-NOTHING PARTY.
as an organized mob to suppress the
freedom of speech, and succeeded by
brute force in taking possession of
every building in which their oppo-
nents could meet, and silencing them
by savage yells." (Jvdian's "Political
Eecollections," 142.)
Charles Eeemlin, a prominent for-
eign-born Republican of Ohio, in his
"Eeview of American Politics" (page
214), says that "in Know-Nothing
times there was a tacit exception from
anti-foreign objuration in favor of
Scotch and English Protestants.* *
The foreign-bom Presbyterians were in
fact, a sort of back-stair members of
Ejiow-Nothing lodges."
After 1848, there came to the United
States among the increasing German
immigration, a large number of men
imbued with the revolutionary spirit of
the time. This German element was
bitterly hostile to church influence ; and
also inclined to believe that the Amer-
ican system of government could be
reformed. The German Social Demo-
cratic association of Richmond out-
lined a program of reforms, and the
Free Germans of Louisville adopted a
similar platform calling for the aboli-
80
TRE KNOW-yOTHIXG PARTY.
tion of the presidency and the Senate,
the abrogation of Sunday laws, of
oaths taken upon the Bible, etc. In
Maryland, Kentucky and Tennessee
these German programs were widely
used to excite Know-Nothing hostility
to inrmigration. The German element
also v.-as more adverse to the institu-
tion of slavery than were the other
foreign elements. Most o- the Ger-
man papers of the country sLowed a
tendency to support the new Eepubli-
can party. The keen politicians of the
south perceived this. "While in the
north the crusade was carried on main-
ly against the Irish," says Von Hoist
(VI. 188), "the south was chiefly con-
cerned in insuring the harmlessness of
the wicked Germans." Mobbing of
German newspapers and Turner halls
in some of the cities in the border
states were incidents noted in the news-
papers towards the eve of the civil war.
81
IV.
DEMOCEATIC AND REPUB-
LICAN ATTITUDES.
■jV/rANY anti-Nebraska Democrats
i.VX went into Know-Nothing lodges
m 1854. The secret movement un-
doubtedly promised to shape Demo-
cratic nominations as well as Whig and
Republican li^minations in that year.
Congressman Carruthers (Dem.) of
Missouri, admitted (Feb. 28, 1856), in
a letter to his constituents that he had
joined the order:
"I went twice (and but twice), into
their [the Know Nothing] councils. I
'saw Sam.' It took two visits to see
him all over. I made them. I saw enough
and determined never to look on his
face again."
N. P. Banks stated in the House
that he secured his first election (in
82
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
1852) to Congress through a combina-
tion of Democrats and Know-Nothings.
Cutts says that Douglas told him:
"The [Know Xothing] party struck ter-
ror everywhere among the Democrats,
and threatened to gain absolute pos-
ession of the government. I tried to
get the Democrats in caucus to de-
nounce it, biit they refused, and were
afraid. General Cass said to me that
I had enough to contend with, and
could not carry on my shoulders this
new element. I was the first Democrat
to make a speech against it. I did so at
Independence hall, Philadelphia,"
[July 4, 1854]. (A Brief Treatise up-
.on Constitutional and Party Questions
. . " * * as I received it orally from
* " * St. A. Douglas p. 121.)
Douglas and Wise leading the way,
other Democratic politicians joined in
the denunciation of Know Nothingism,
and purged the party of the taint. In
April, 1855, at Murpheesboro, Tenn.,
Gov. Andrew Johnson, (Dem)., deliver-
ed a strong speech against it, and in
May, 1855, Alexander Stephens of
Georgia published a letter denouncing
it.
The Democratic members of Con-
83
THE EXOW-XOTHING PARTY.
gress, v.-liich convened December, 1855,
unlike their predecessors in the pre-
vious Congress, loiew where they ought
to stand on the Know-Nothing issue.
Fresh from the mandate of the people,
they took occasion, in their first party
caucus, to declare themselves against
Know-Xothingism.
The Democratic platform upon
which Buchanan was elected Presi-
dent in 1858, v>'as unequivocal in this
matter. It recited:
"That the liberal principles sanction-
ed in the Constitution which makes
ours the land of liberty and the asylum
of the oppressed of every nation have
been cardinal principles of the Demo-
cratic faith; and every attempt to
abridge the privilege of becoming citi-
zens and owning soil among us ought
to be resented." And :
"Hence a political crusade in the
nineteenth century and in the United
States of America against Catholics
and foi-eign born, is neither justified
by the past history nor future prospects
of the country, nor in unison with thy
spirit of toleration and enlightened
freedom which peculiarly distinguishes
the American system of popular gov-
84
TEE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
eriiment."
The formation of the "Repviblican"
party was first suggested at a meeting
of anti-slavery men convened March,
1854, at Ripon, Wisconsin, and this
was followed in July, 1854, by Republi-
can movements in Michigan and Ver-
mont. But the Republican movement
did not at once take hold throughout
the country. The old Whig party re-
fused to disband in New York and
Massachusetts, and the Know Nothings
placed all obstacles possible in the way
of the new party. The demand of the
northern anti-slavery sentiment for a
political organization gradually found
expression, however, after the middle of
1854, — in some states, as in Indiana
where it chose the title "People's par-
ty"^ — imder differing names and aus-
pices, but with a general similarity of
aims and purposes everywhere.
The earnest anti-slavery men who
founded the Republican party were
generally outspoken antagonists of
Know Nothingism; not entirely, of
course, because they disliked its intol-
erance, but because they revolted at its
truce with the slavocracy. Wade,
Giddings and Julian were among those
85
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
vrho early denounced the Know Noth-
ings. In a speech in the Senate on
the Homestead bill, William H. Sew-
ard took occasion (February, 1855) to
remark :
"It is sufficient for me to say that, in
my judgment, everything is un-
American which makes a distinction,
of whatever kind, in this country, be-
t'n'een the native born Araerican and
him whose lot is directed to be cast
here by an overruling Providence, and
who renounces his allegiance to a for-
eign land and swears fealty to the coun-
try which adopts him."
And Henry Ward Beecher wrote
in The Independent (January, 18,
1855: "By yearo of persistent la-
bor, the conscience and honor of multi-
tudes of the north had been aroused.
They began to see and value the real
principles fundamental to American in-
stitutions. Under the shallow pretense
that Know Nothing lodges would, by
and by, become the champions of liber-
ty, as now they are of the Protestant
faith, thousands have been inveigled in-
to these catacorabs of freedom. One
might as well study optics in the
pyramids of Egypt, or the subterranean
86
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
tombs of Rome, as liberty in secret con-
claves controlled by hoary knaves
versed in political intrigue, who can
hardly enough express their surprise
and delight to see honest men going
into a wide-spread system of secret
caucuses. Honest men in such places
have the peculiar advantage that flies
have in a spider's web — the privilege
of losing their legs, of buzzing without
flying, and being eaten up at leisure by
big-bellied spiders."
Greeley in The New York Tribune,
and Dr. Bailey in The National Era,
were strongly anti-Know-Nothing. All
the extreme atjol'itionists and their
organ. The Liberator, were adverse on
principle to the proscriptive movement.
The first state convention of the Re-
publican party in Illinois, (Blooming-
ton, March, 1856), inserted in its plat-
form a resolution denouncing the Know
Nothings. Abraham Lincoln was pres-
ent as a delegate. When the anti-slav-
ery men of Nev/ York (in the latter
part of 1855), finally came together to
laimch the Republican party, the plat-
form reported by Horace Greeley and
adopted by the convention, strongly
condemned the methods and the doc-
87
/
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
trines of the Know Nothings.
February 22, 1856, a national conven-
tion of the Republicans met at Pitts-
burg, and when Charles Reemlin and
other speakers vigorously denounced
Know Nothingism as a mischievous
side issue, they were loudly applaiided.
At the subsequent national convention
of the Republican party in June at
Philadelphia, the platform upon which
Fremont was nominated declared * *
"believing that the spirit of our insti-
tions as well as the institutions of our
country guarantees liberty of consci-
ence and equality of rights among citi-
zens we oppose all prescriptive legisla-
tion affecting their security."
This view was substantially reiter-
ated in the platform of the Chicago na-
tional convention of the Republican
party in 1860, section 14, reciting that
"the Republican party is opposed to
any changes in our naturalization
laws" and favors "protection to the
rights of all classes of citizens, whether
native or naturalized."
Former Know Nothings sat in these
conventions and heard the principles
of their recent affiliation denounced,
but they made no objection. Either
88
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
their eyes had been opened, or the evil
training of surreptitious politics de-
prived them of the courage of their
convictions.
The Republican party absorbed
thousands of those who left the
Know Nothing lodges and its politi-
cians tempered their methods in the
years 1857-9, in such wise as to catch
the fragments of the disrupting Ameri-
can party.
Chas. A. Dana, for instance, wrote
Sept. 1, 1859:
"The Americans hold the balance
of power in both [N. J. and N. Y.]
Their party is in the act of final dis-
solution. Shall we let the fragments
fall into with the arms of the Loco-
focos." (Pike p. 444).
There was an effective warning, how-
ever, against truckling in this process
to any Know-Nothing policy. Thus
Lincoln, in 1859, wrote a public letter
against "the waning fallacy of Know-
Nothingism," (see Nicholay and Hay's
Biographj^ II., 181), with special ref-
erence to the Know-Nothing naturali-
zation idea.
Horace Greeley ("Recollections" p.
290), expresses this opinion, which as
89
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
a forecast, undoubtedly governed the
mauagevs of the Republican party aft-
er 1856:
"The fact that almost every Know
jSTothing was at heart a Whig or a
Democrat, a champion or an opponent
of slavery and felt a stronger, deeper
interest in other issues than in those
which affiliated him with the 'Order',
rendered its disruption and abandon-
ment not a question of years, but of
months."
It is not the less true or creditable,
however, that the initial expressions of
the Republican party and of its lead-
ers were unequivocally against the
Know-Nothing movement.
90
V.
KNOW-NOTHINGISM AND ITS
ISSUES.
THE national convention of the
American party at Philadelphia, in
June, 1855, made the following state-
ment of the distinctive principles of
Know-Nothingism :
"A radical revision and modification
of the laws regulating immigration,
and tlie settlement of immigrants, of-
fering the honest immigrant, who from
love of liberty or hatred of oppression,
seeks an asylum in the United States,
a friendly reception and protection,
but unqualifiedly condemning the
transmission to our shores or felons and
paupers.
"The essential modfication of the
naturalization laws. The repeal by the
legislatures of the respective states of
91
y
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
all state laws allowing foreigners not
naturalized, to vote. The repeal, with-
out retrospective operation, of all acts
of Congress making grants of land to
unnaturalized foreigners, and allowing
them to vote in the territories.
"Eesistance to the aggressive policy
and corrupting tendencies of the Ro-
man Catholic Church in our country;
by the advancement to all political
stations, executive, legislative, judicial
or diplomatic — of those only who do
not hold civil allegiance, directly or in-
directly, to any foreign power, whether
civil or ecclesiastical, and who are
Americans by birth, education and
training, thus fulfilling the maxim,
'Americans only shall govern America.'
"And inasmuch as Christianity, by
the constitutions of nearly all the
states; by the decisions of most emi-
nent judicial authorities, and by the
consent of the people of America, is
considered an element of our political
system, and the Holy Bible is at once
the sovirce of Christianity and the de-
pository and fountain of all civil and
religious freedom, we oppose every at-
tempt to exclude it from the schools
thus established in the states."
92
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
The platform of the American par-
ty in 1856, upon which Fillmore was
nominated, covered the ground of the
preceding platform as follows :
"Americans must rule America, and
to this end native-born citizens should
be selected for all state and municipal
offices, or government employment, in
preference to all others.
"No person should be selected for
political station (whether of native or
foreign birth), who recognizes any al-
legiance or obligation of any descrip-
tion to any foreign prince, potentate or
power, or who refuses to recognize the
federal and state constitutions (each
within its sphere), as paramount to all
other laAVS as issues of political ac-
tion.
"A change in the laws of naturaliza-
tion, making a continued residence of
twenty-one years, of all not hereinbe-
fore provided for, an indispensable re-
quisite for citizenship hereafter, and
excluding all paupers and persons con-
victed of crime, from landing upon our
shores, but no interference with the
vested rights of foreigners."
On the slavery issue, the sincere men
in the '50's — the men who knew what
93
THE KNOW-NOTHING PABTY.
they wanted and who were earnest
about it — were the Republicans of the
north, who opposed the further exten-
sion of slavery, no matter what the
consequences; and on the other side,
the Democrats of the south, who wanted
the sectional equilibrium maintained,
slavery extended equally with the
spread of freedom, a new slave state
for every new free state, and if this
could not be, the south would secede.
Between these parties stood many
who temporized, or compromised, or
trinnned ; and the EJnow-Nothings were
conspicuously of this class. They took
the position that their issues, — natural-
ization, immigration and papal aggres-
sion were the important and vital is-
sues, — and that the slavery issue must,
for the sake of the union and section-
al harmony, be left where legislation
up to the year 1855 found it.
But as northern opinion continued
to turn against the political dominance
of the south, provoked by the demands
which the slavocray made, and exacted
from the Democratic party (embodied
in such events as the Kansas-Xebraska
bill, the Fugitive Slave law and the
Dred Scott decision), a large element
94
THE KXOW-XOTHIXG PARTY.
of the northern I\jiov7-Nothings, wheth-
er from policy or conviction, found
that they could no longer straddle the
slavery issue. Numbers of these went
into the Eepublican party ; numbers of
them adhered to the American party
under protest as to its position on the
slavery issue.
At the national convention of the
Kjiow-Nothing order at Philadel-
phia in June, 1855, there were two re-
ports on the slavery question from the
committee on resolutions. The major-
ity.consistingof fourteen members from
the southern states and the representa-
tives from New York and Minnesota,
declared that Congress ought not to
prohibit slaveiy in the District of Co-
lumbia or in any territory, that it had
no power to exclude any state from ad-
mission to the union because that
state, by its constitution, allowed sla-
very. The minority, consisting of th?
representatives from thirteen free
states, proposed that the Missouri com-
promise should be re-enacted, and that
no part of the Kansas-Nebraska terri-
tory should come into the union as a
slave state. After a protracted debate,
the majority report, as has been noted,
95
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
v\'as adopted (80 to 59). The minority
protested, but the northern wing of the
party nevertheless, continvied to act
with the southern wing. Their anti-
slavery sentiment was a matter of pol-
icy rather than of conviction. This
was illustrated at the subsequent na-
tional gathering of the party at Phil-
adelphia in February, 1856, v.hen
the platform being under consid-
eration, Mr. Sheets of Indiana,
pleaded for a more ambiguovis
statement on the slavery issue for the
sake of the northern Know-Nothings ;
"he was willing to accept the Washing-
ton platform ; for if there was anything
in it, it was so covered up Avith verbiage
that a president would be elected before
the people found out what it was all
about (tumultuous laughter)."*
Southern opinion, both Democratic
and Whig, in so far as it was concerned
about the slavery question, regarded the
Know-Nothing movement complacent-
ly, as a diversion in political tactics,
and as such calculated to impede the
*In the course oi debate. Parson Brown-
low of Tennessee, declared he could "take
five men of his delegation and lick the Ohio
delegation out of the hall."
96
TEE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
growth of the anti-slavery sentiment in
the north. Julian's view on the mat-
ter is, of course, far-fetched, but it in-
dicates correctly the practical advan-
tage the southerner might look for:
"Its [the American party's] birth,
simultaneously with the repeal of the
Missouri compromise, was not an ac-
cident, as any one could see who had
studied the tactics of the slave-holders.
It was a well-timed scheme to divide
the people of the free states upon trifles
and side issues, while the south re-
mained a unit in defense of its great
interest. It was the cunning attempt
to balk and divert the indignation
aroused by the repeal of the Missouri
restriction, which else would spend its
force upon the aggression of slavery;
for by thus kindling the Protestant
jealousy of our people against the Pope,
and enlisting them in a crusade
against the foreigner, the south
could all the more successfully push
forward its schemes." (Political Recol-
lections. 1840 to 1872, p. 141.)
Southern opinion rather welcomed a
northern movement to shvit out Euro-
pean inunigration. Immigration had
largely increased the preponderance of
97
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
the north in the popular branch of
Congress, and given that section its
y army of western settlers now peopling
the territories for freedom. Governor
Smith of Virginia said in a speech,
reported in The New York Tribune,
March 14, 1855: "The origin of the
Know-Nothings^ is a struggle for bread
— a frightful and angry question at
the north. At the south it is a politi-
cal question of high importance. The
north has fifty-five more representatives
than the south already. The natural
increase of the south is one-third great-
er than that of the north, because there
are greater checks on population there ;
but the artificial element of foreignism
brings 500,000 who settle annually in
^/^ the free states, with instincts against
slavery, making fifty representatives in
ten years to swell the opposition to
the south. To stop this enormous dis-
proportion, what is our i)olicy? What
is the frightful prospect before us'i
The effect of Know-Nothingism is to
turn back the tide of immigration, and
our highest duty to the south is to dis-
y/ courage immigration. I deprecate it
as a great calamity."
A slaveholder of the period put the
98
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
matter in this way : "The mistake with
us has been that it was not made fel-
ony to bring in an Irishman when it
was made piracy to bring in an Afri-
can." (Draper's American Conflict, I,,
446.)
99
ff
VI.
SOLVENT INFLUENCES AND
DISCUSSION.
AFTER 1854 the Know-Nothing
■^^- movement was subjected to the sol-
vent influences of public opinion. The
press of the country sought to drag it
into the open. Its extension in-
to the south was accompanied by
a loss of secrecy. The American party
there adopted the open methods of the
Whig party which it absorbed. "It does
the south no small honor," says
Von Hoist, (V. p. 191), "that there
the party had to agree to give up
its secrecy and its oaths as it had al-
ready been forced there to make conces-
sions in regard to the Catholics."
Col J. W. Forney, in an address on
"Eeligious Intolerance and Political
Proscription" delivered at Lancaster,
100
TEE KNO}Y-XOTHIXG PARTY.
Pa., 24tli Sept. 1855, p. 22, tells us :
"To such extent has public indigna-
tion been excited against the profane
and familiar resort to extra judicial
oaths, and the invariable appeal to
force and fraud at the ballot-boxes,
that in portions of the Union it [the
American party] has deliberately dis-
carded alike its secrecy and its obliga-
tions. This has been the case in Ala-
bama, Georgia, Louisiana and South
Carolina."
The secrecy of the order was practi-
cally done for throughout the whole
country after the American party
launched itself in national politics.
When in June, 1855, the Know-Noth-
ing national convention assembled at
Philadelphia, its sessions were fully re-
ported in the New York papers whose
representatives were present at the
gathering. State councils of the Know-
Nothing order there were empowered to
dispense with the secret character of the
m.ovement. The platform declared:
'•'That each state council shall have
authority to amend their several con-
stitutions so as to abolish the several
degrees, and institute a pledge of hon-
or instead of other obligations for fel-
101
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
lowship and admission into the party.
A free and open discussion of all the
political principles embraced in our
platform."
This option was speedily availed of.
The Massachusetts Know-Nothings, for
instance, on August 7, 1855, abolished
secrecy, including the oatlis. (Life of
Bowles, 140).
One consequence of the loss of secre-
cy and the turning on of the light of
piiblic discussion was the attempted
disavowal and abatement of the intoler-
ant program of the order and the des-
uetude of its obligations against the
Catholics and foreigners. This happen-
ed quite generally in the south and
more particularly in the states of Lou-
isiana and Missouri; but also in Cali-
fornia.
L. M. Kennett of Missouri, himself a
Know-Nothing congressman said of the
party in his state : "All secrecy is there
discarded and religious tests ignored."
(Cluskey, The Political Test book p,
299). Congressman Barry of Missis-
sippi, speaking December, 1854, in the
House of Representatives said: "In
Louisiana Catholics are allowed to join
the order because that denomination is
102
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
too numerous there to be assailed open-
ly." Congressman Eustis of Louisiana,
elected as a Know-Nothing, delivered a
speech Jan. 6, 1856, in the House of
Representatives in which he entirely
repudiated the anti-Catholic policy of
his party and passed to a eulogy of
Catholic citizenship.*
In Illinois the Know-jSTothing order
split into two factions, "the Sams" in-
sisting upon an anti-Catholic program
and "the Jonathans" proposing not to
antagonize Catholics who owed no civil
allegiance as distinguished from spirit-
ual allegiance to the Pope. The
Jonathans triumphed.
But even in the south, in the course
of political discussion, when the Ameri-
can party was forced to defend its in-
tolerant program, its advocates borrow-
ed the narrow and inflaraatory argu-
ments of their northern brethren;
though they preferred to avoid this line
of discussion and many of them suc-
ceeded in doing so.
*Two sets of delegates appeared from
Louisiana at the Philadelphia Know-Noth-
ing convention in 1856. And among the
members of one it was ascertained that
there were Catholics.
103
THE KNO W-NOTHING PARTY.
There were, too, numerous splits in
the order, growing out of personal jeal-
ousies and contests for power.
When the Grand Council of New
York, in October 1854, put up a candi-
date for governor it was claimed that
this was done without consulting the
subordinate councils. The Grand Coun-
cil then complained that its candidates
v/ere defeated at the polls because a
large number of Kno-A'-Nothings had
not voted for them. An attempt was
made to discipline the bolters and this
widened the breach. The Brooklyn
Council objected to such coercion by
resolutions which described the action
of the Grand Council as "equalled only
by the Holy Inquisition of Spain,"
Allen, the father of the order, was
impelled to organize a seceding move-
ment; and the "Know-Somethings," the
"North Americans," the "Mountain
Sweets" and other designations, which
are found in the newspapers after 1854,
indicate the progress of such disin-
tegration.
While the Nativist and anti-Catholic
movement was inevitable and would
have occurred even if the Irish and
Catholic element had been on their best
104
TEE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
behavior and had given no provocation
whatever, it is interesting to note is-
how far the Catholics held themselves
blameable. Dr. Brownson, the emi-
nent Catholic publicist of that day, in
his Quarterly Keview (Works, vol. 10,
page 317), said of the Irish element;
"The great majority of them are quiet,
modest and peaceful and loyal citizens
adorning religion by their faith and
piety and enriching the country by
their successful trade or their produc-
tive industry. But it cannot be denied
that hanging loosely on to their skirts
is a miserable rabble unlike anything
which the country has ever known of
native growth — a noisy, drinking and
brawling rabble, who have after all a
great deal of influence with their coun-
trymen, who are usually taken to rep-
resent the whole Irish Catholic body,
and who actually do compromise it to
an extent much greater than good Cath-
olics, attentive to their own business,
conxmonly suspect or can easily be
made to believe."
As for the proper policy for Catholics
to pursue in the matter. Dr. Brownson
wrote as follows. (Quoted in the Life
of O. A. Brownson, Vol, 2, Page 539) :
105
THE KNOW-XOTHIXG PARTY.
"We Catholics are in a small min-
ority and tlie sentiment of the country-
is strongly anti-Catholic. Every meas-
ure that we oppose as hostile to us, the
country will favor and adopt and every
measure we support as favorable to our
interests, it will reject. I am sorry
that it is so, but so it is; and I think
that in regard to matters which depend
on popular votes, and in which we are
interested as Catholics, the more quiet
we keep the better it will be for us."
This advice was not followed by Dr.
Brownson's co-religionists. They ev-
eryAvhere met their "dark lantern" an-
tagonist openly and with vigor. They
fought it through their press and they
fought it through the political party
to which most of them belonged; for
undoubtedly it was due to the large
Catholic and Irish element in the Dem-
ocratic party that Douglas and other
Democratic leaders purged their party
of the Know-Nothing elem^ent and
made it not neutral, but openly hostile
to the Know-^Nothing policy.
No matter how good the behavior of
the Catholic and Irish element might
have been, the old charge of the evan-
gelical church party in England and
106
THE KXOVf-XOTHIXG PARTY.
America that the citizenship of the
Catholic is a uiatter of divided allegi-
ance would have formed the main
charge of the Know-Xothing move-
ment. The Catholics denied the charge.
Brownson wrote:
"In acknowledging the equal rights
of all religions the American system
acknowledges that the state has no au-
thority in spirituals and therefore in
religious matters has no claim to the
obedience or allegiance of any of its
subjects or citizens. Hence as the Pope
has only authority over Catholics in
the spiritual order, no obedience he
can exact of them, or which they owe
him, can ever conflict with any obedi-
ence which the state with us even
claims as its due." (Brownson's Works
Vol. 18. page 345.)
But he also trenched upon what, in
this country at least, will always be a
purely academic issue: whether in case
of conflict between the temporal and
spiritual order, which must yields
"The temporal of course" answered
Brownson. This branch of the discvis-
sion was quite a needless one to enter
on, especially too as it subjected Dr.
Brownson and his co-religionists to a
107
THE EXOW-XOTHIXG PARTY.
great deal of misrepresentation and
Brownson personally, to the attack of
most of the Catholic and Irish-Ameri-
can papers of the country, which re-
garded him as an extremist in his view
of this matter. John Mitchell, then
editing the Irish Citizen of New York,
assailed Brownson as follows:
"This I say has been your work Doc-
tor Orestes; hence has come whatever
of bitterness and ferocity that is to be
found in the Native- American party;
this outrageous caricature of Catholici-
ty, held up to America by you (after
you had tired of all the other religions)
has been the principal spring, and is
the only excuse for the furious anti-
Irish spirit which is now raging."
Not only Brownson's Quarterly Re-
view, but other Catholic papers were
widely misquoted in Know-Nothing
publications; and in this discussion
their language was garbled and not a
few sheer fabrications were set afloat.
It is to be noted that so respectable a
historian as Von Hoist in the fifth
volume of his Constitutional History,
taking quotations from Brownson's
Eeview, second hand as he finds them
in Know-Nothing publications, is mis-
108
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
led as to the Catholic attitude in the
discussions referred to. An alleged quo-
tation from a St. Louis publication
called The Shepherd of the Valley,
which has done service in anti-Catholic
literature for nearly half a century
and the garbled nature of which has
been frequently exposed, is accepted by
Yen Hoist in his array of evidence as to
Catholic opinion.
But these misquotations of Catholic
authorities were merely incidents in
the discussion. They were not neces-
sary to bolster up the time honored
Anglo-Saxon and Evangelical aspersion
of the integrity Catholic citizenship,
an aspersion as old as the age of Queen
Elizabeth and responsible for the perse-
cuting statutes of her time; an aspersion
too, which though diminishing in force
from generation to generation is, never-
theless, liable to recur in years to come
and during- future flurries of intoler-
109
YII.
THE CAM-PAIGX OF 1856.
/"^jST Washin^on's birthday, Feb. 22,
^^ 1856, the American party met
at Philadelphia to nominate a presi-
dential ticket. The selection of a can-
didate for president was easily made.
Fillmore led with 71 votes on the first
ballot, a scattering opposition giving
George Law 27 votes, Garret Davis 13,
R. F. Stockton 8, Judge McLean 7,
Sam Houston 6, John Bell 5, Kenneth
Raynor 2, Erastus Brooks 2, John ^L
Clayton of Delaware 1 and L. D.
Campbell of Ohio 1. A. J. Donnelson
of Tennessee was nominated for vice-
president. The American ticket was
endorsed- a few months later, by a na-
tional convention of the old line Whigs
at Baltimore.
The Republican party assembled in
Philadelphia in June, and nominated
110
THE EXOW-XOTHIXG PARTY.
John C. Fremont for president. On
the informal ballot, 359 votes were cast
for Fremont and 196 for McLean.
Around the candidacy of McLean,
then a judge of the supreme court of
the United States, there gathered some-
thing of interest in the history of
Know-Xothingism. He had been a
cabinet officer under Monroe and John
Quincy Adams, and he was appointed
to the supreme bench by Andrew Jack-
son. The secession of a number of
northern delegates from the American
convention atPhiladelphia in February,
had entered into the calculation of the
Republicans who sought to attach those
delegates to their cause. It was gen-
erally understood that the anti-slavery
Americans favored McLean. The Ger-
man element of the country, then large-
ly affiliating with the Republican party,
took alarm. A great majority of their
papers, of which there were then a hun-
dred in the country, clamored for Fre-
mont, probably through fear of Mc-
Lean's supposed nativist tendencies.
Delegates from the doubtful states, and
many conservative Republicans,
were inclined to favor McLean as the
more available candidate. They thought
111
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
that he would make a better run
against Buchanan in Pennsylvania,
which was then a pivotal state. On
that account Stevens, Lincoln, Wash-
burn and many others, advised his nom-
ination. Fremont's nomination, on
the formal ballot was, however, al-
most unanimous.
The Know-Nothings, who seceded
from the Philadelphia American con-
vention, ultimately endorsed Fremont,
though they first nominated Banks,
who declined. Fremont's nomination,
hov>'ever, was not acceptable to a cer-
tain other element of the "North Amer-
icans." They further seceded and nom-
inated Stockton of New Jersey for
president.
In the ensuing campaign the noise
and hurrah throughout the north were
decidedly with the Republicans. They
gave the country a livelier season of
electioneering than any it had seen
since 1840 ; indeed, old politicians seem
to agree that '56 was even more rous-
ing than the Tippecanoe and Tyler cam-
paign. It was increasingly apparent
that the American party had no chance
of victory. In Pennsylvania, which
was then an October pivotal state, the
112
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
Kepublican and Know-Nothing mana-
gers came together to patch up a plan
to wrest that state from Buchanan by
arranging a union state ticket. The
plan failed. Pennsylvania was carried
in October by the Democrats against
the combined votes of the other parties ;.
and again for the national ticket in
November. Bvichanan received 174
electoral votes, to 114 for Fremont and
8 for Fillmore. This campaign ended
the American party as a national or-
ganization.
The distribution of the popular vote
received by Fillmore, the candidate of
the American party, was as follows:
FREE STATES, i SLAVE STATES.
Maine 3,335 Virginia 60.310
New Hampshire .422 No. Carolina. ..36,886
Vermont 545 So. Carolina
Massachusetts. 19,626 Georgia 42,228
Connecticut .. ..1,675 Alabama 28,552
Rhode Island.... 2,615 Florida 4.833
Mississippi 24,195
28,218 ! Louisiana 20,709
Nev/ York .. ..124,604 Texas 15,639
*New Jersey... 24,115 Arkansas 10,787
♦Pennsylvania. 82,175 ; Missouri 48,524
Tennessee 66,178
230,894 Kentucky 67,416
Ohio 28,126 Delaware 6,175
Michigan 1,660 Maryland 47,460
'Indiana 22,386
♦Illinois 37,444 I Total 479,882
Wisconsin 579
Iowa 9,180
♦California 36,165
135,540
Total 394,652
The free states (5) marked with a
113
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
star, and all the slave states except
Maryland, were carried by Buchanan,
giving him 174 electoral votes. Fre-
mont carried 11 of the 16 free states,
giving him 114 electoral votes, and Fill-
more carried Maryland alone, giving
him 8 electoral votes. The American
party cut but little figure in this elec-
tion in the I\ew England states and
in the northwest. In Illinois it cast
about sixteen per cent, of the total
vote, and in Ohio and Indiana less than
eight per cent. In California it cast
one-third of the total vote, and in New
York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania,
less than one-fourth. The north cast
less than one-seventh of its total vote
for the KxLow-Nothing presidential
ticket, and the south about three-sev-
enths of its total vote : the north some-
thing less than fifteen per cent, and the
south something over forty per cent.
More than haK, or 480,000 of the 874,-
000 votes given Fillmore, came from
that portion of the United States south
of Mason and Dixon's line, and but
394,652 from the free states.
The popular vote of the free states
was thus divided as between the candi-
dates: Of a total of 2,961,009 north-
114
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
orn voters, 1,340,070 voted for Fremont,
the Republican candidate, 1,22(3,287
voted for Buchanan, the Democratic
candidate, and 394,652 voted for Fill-
more, the American candidate. In the
total southern vote of 1,092,995, 611,-
879 voted for Buchanan, 479,882 for
Fillmore and only 1,094 voted for Fre-
mont.
The Know-Nothing vote in the south,
however, is not so sigiiificant as bear-
ing upon the question of religious and
nativist intolerance as the vote in the
north. It did not signify much be-
yond the gathering of the Whig oppo-
sition under a new banner, but held to-
gether by the same Whig principles,
associations and leaders. In the north,
however, the Know-Nothing vote of
1856, wherever it appeared, usually sig-
nified a much larger degree of existing
religiovis and racial prejudice.
The vote of New England showed
that this state of feeling had been swept
away almost entirely by the deeper in-
terest felt in the slavery issue, but the
old nativist root feeling in New York,
New Jersey and Pennsylvania still per-
sisted, and possibly held a fifth of the
voters of those states in willing bond-
115
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
age; and to some extent the same intol-
erant feeling was influential in Ohio,
Indiana and Illinois, where, perhaps
from five to ten per cent of the voters
still thought the Pope a more vital is-
sue than slavery.
The "VMiig vote of the south in 1852
had been 367,000. The American par-
ty of 1856, with 480,000 votes in the
south, virtually absorbed the strength
and natural increase of the Whigs.
It came closest to carrying the old-time
Whig states of Kentucky, Tennessee
and Louisiana, which, since 1836, had
generally gone for the Whig presiden-
tial candidate. Maryland, which Fill-
more carried, was also naturally "a
Whig state. It had given its electoral
vote to the Whig candidate for presi-
dent at every election since 1836, that
of 1852 alone excepted.
116
VIII.
KIS^OW-XOTHINGISM IX COX-
GKESS.
A LTHOFGH the thirty-third con-
-^~*- gress, elected at the time of
the presidential election in 1852,
and convening for its first ses-
sion in December, 1853, and for
its second session in December, 1854,
was overwhelmingly Democratic (Dem-
ocrats, 159; Whigs, 71; Free Soilers,
4), there was not wanting a suspicion
that a number of its members, many
of them Whigs, but some Democrats,
had been inducted into the Know-Noth-
ing order, or were under obligations to
the new movement for support at the
polls. In February, 1855, Congress-
man Witte of Pennsylvania, introduced
a resolution in the House condemn-
ing secret political societies and their
117
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
prescript h-e purposes; and he moved a
suspension of the rules so that the reso-
lution could be discussed; at the same
time, declaring that the vote on the sus-
pension of the rules would be regarded
as a test vote. The House refused to
suspend the rules, — ayes 103, noes 78 —
the necessary two-thirds vote in the af-
firmative not being obtained. Had all
the Dv mocrats voted for the suspension
of the rules, that motion might havti;
easily carried. Those Democrats who
voted in the negative explained their
course by stating that a prolonged dis-
cussion upon the resolution would in-
terfere with the transaction of a mass
of business which had been accumulat-
ing in the committeees of the House.
The thirty- fourth congress, elected at
the fall elections of 1854, was divided,
in so far as a classification was possi-
ble, as follows : In the Senate, 42 Dem-
ocrats, 15 Republicans and 5 Know-
Xothings. In the House, 83 Demo-
crats, 108 Republicans (TO of whom
were members of Know-Nothing coun-
cils), and 43 out-and-out Know-Noth-
ings. The Know-Nothings held the
balance of power. There then ensued
a prolonged contest for the speakership,
118
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
one of the most remarkable episodes of
the kind in our congressional annals.
Both Democrats and Republicans seem
to have bid for the American vote.
Men of Know-Nothing affiliation were
prominent among the candidates. On
the first ballot Humphrey Marshall of
Louisville, Ky., one of the Know-Xoth-
ing leaders of the border states, received
30 out of the 225 votes cast. N. P.
Banks of Massachusetts, first a Dem-
ocrat, then a Know-Xothing, but now a
Eepublican, received 21 votes. H. M.
Fuller, leader of the conservative
Know-Nothings, received IT votes. L.
D. Campbell of Ohio, anti-slavery
Know-Nothing, 53 votes. After two
months of continuous balloting, N. P.
Banks, the Republican candidate, was
finally elected speaker by a plurality
vote.
At the presidential election of 1856,
the Know-iSTothings met with reverses.
Tlie thirty-fifth congress, which wa.=
then elected, began its session in Dec-
ember, 1857, and was constituted as
follows: In the Senate 39 Democrats,
20 Republicans and 5 Know-Nothings;
in the house 131 Democrats, 92 Repub-
licans and 14 Ivnow-Nothings. Oit
119
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
(Dem.) was elected speaker. He was
unequivocably against the Know-Noth-
ings.
The thirty-sixth congress, elected
in the fall of 1858, met for its
first session in December, 1859,
and was constituted as fol-
lows : In the Senate, 38 Democrats,
26 Republicans and 2 Know-Nothings ;
in the House, 101 Democrats, 113 Ee-
publicans (four of whom were Know-
Nothings), and 23 Know-Nothings
(openly classed as such). By this
time the Know-Nothing party, especial-
ly so far as it appeared in Congress,
was a border-state party. Its two sen-
ators were from the states of Kentucky
and Maryland. Of its twenty-three
congressmen, five came from Kentucky,
seven from Tennessee, three from Ma-
ryland, four from North Carolina, two
from Georgia and one each from Louis-
iana and Virginia. Pennington (Rep.)
was chosen speaker, receiving 117 votes
to 85 for his Democratic opponent.
As the American party was never
anything but a mere minority or third
party, in Congress, it naturally had lit-
tle influence upon national legislation.
"Huinphrej' Marshall, a Kentucky
120
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
Know-Nothing-, said that he found no
American party in Washington; that
the engrossing subject was the negro."
(Ehodes History of the United States
-II., 117).
"Know-Nothingism," says Von Hoist
(V., 129), "disappeared without having
accomplished the least thing against
immigrants, adopted citizens or Cath-
121
IX.
LAST YEARS.
\ FTER 1856, the disintegration of
■^^*- the Know-Nothing order was rapid.
It had carried Maryland and Rhode
Island in the state election of 1856, and
in these states and in Kentucky and
Tennessee it continued to retain some
political power; but the question in
practical politics with respect to it was :
"Where will the fragments fall?"
In New York the Democrats were able
to pick up some strength by absorbing
a portion of the Know-Nothing ele-
ment. Vv'e find, for instance, Erastus
Brooks becoming, in the course of
years, a Democrat in good standing, so
that in 1868 he went as a delegate to
the convention of the Democratic par-
ty which put Seymour in nomination
for the presidency. Millard Fillmore,
in 1864, openly supported McClellan
122
THE KXOV/-XOTHIXCt PARTY.
for the presidency. In Ohio, some
years later, we find Campbell, one of
the leaders of the Know-Nothing party
in that state, enrolled with the Demo-
cratic party. The larger element of the
party in the northern states drifted in-
to the anti-slavery movement repre-
sented by the Republican party.
In the speakership contest of 1859-
60, the border-state Americans held 'the
balance of power. The Democrats, at
one period of the contest, sought to win
the speakership by combining upon
Smith, an American congressman from
North Carolina. He received 112 votes
January 27, 1860, — within three votes
of an election. When Pennington, the
Republican candidate, was finally elect-
ed speaker, February 1, 1860, he re-
ceived 117 votes, am.ong them the votes
of two Americans, Briggs of New York
and Henry Y/inter Davis of Maryland.
Another episode of interest in the
absorption of the Know-Nothing fol-
lowing: occurred in the Chicago Repub-
lican convention of 1860. Two-thirds
of the delegates to that convention are
said to have favored the nomination of
William H. Seward. Several influ-
ences com.bined in depriving Seward of
123
TEE KNOVi-NOTHINO PARTY.
what was almost within his grasp. The
feeling that he might prove too radi-
cal a candidate to be available, and the
criticism to which he was exposed in
his own state on various grounds had
their bearing; but in the view of many
historians the question of his availa-
bility as presidential candidate in
Pennsylvania and Indiana also figured.
In these states the Republican party
was depending for its success upon the
complete absorption of the Know-ISToth-
ing following, and Seward's outspoken
denunciation of the Know-Nothing
movement, and his entire career, since
1840, as towards the nativist movement,
were considered factors that would
count against him. As a consequence,
the Republican candidates for gover-
nor in those states influenced their del-
egations against Seward.
The Constitutional Union party, which
nominated Bell and Everett as candi-
dates in 1860, was made up chiefly of
the jetsam and flotsam of the American
party not yet absorbed by the other
parties. Bell was a member of the
Ajnerican party, and Everett had sup-
ported Filhnore in 1856. The Consti-
tutional Union movement was organ-
124
f
TEE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
ized by such border and southern state
Americans as Crittenden of Kentucky
and Houston of Texas. Filhnore's to-
tal vote in 1866 was 874,000; Bell's in
1860, 646,000; but while Bell main-
tained Fillmore's stren^h in the slave
states, where he received 516,000 as
compared with Fillmore's 480,000 in
1856, in the free states Bell received
only 130,000 as compared with Fill-
more's 394,000 in 1856.
186
X.
LOCAL SKETCHES.
T T remains to make special mention
^ of Know-Nothing activity in cer-
tain localities where it worked itself
out more fully and typically as an in-
fluence in city and state polities.
The career of the Know-Nothing
party in Maryland is noteworthy by
reason of the fact that this was the
only state carried by the American
party in the presidential election of
1858; that Know-Nothingism persisted
here as a political force longer than
in any other locality, the Know-Noth-
ings holding the reins of government
in Baltimore from the fall of 1854 to
the fall of 1860 ; and also for the elec-
tion riots and disorders which Know-
Nothingism perpetrated in Baltimore.
Twice, (in 1855 and in 1857), the
126
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
Know-Nothiiigs carried the state Leg-
islature. In the latter year they
elected a candidate for governor by
reason of a large fraudulent vote cast
in Baltimore.
The picturesque, and at the same time
the repulsive, feature of the reign of
Know-Nothingism in Baltimore was
the roughing of elections. In October,
1854, the Know-Nothing candidate was
elected mayor of Baltimore by a ma-
jority of two thousand. In 1856 Thom-
as Swann, a former president of the
Baltimore & Ohio railroad, was the
Know-Nothing candidate for mayor of
Baltimore, and he was elected by a
majority of fifteen himdred. After
this the Know-Nothings ruled Balti-
more and Maryland with a high hand.
They carried Baltimore for their can-
didate for governor in 1857 by over
nine thousand majority, and at the
municipal election of 1858 they re-
elected Swann mayor by a majority of
19,154 out of a total vote of 24,003.
They again carried the city in the fi4\
of 1859 by a majority of 12^000 for
their state ticket. The Legislature
chosen this year was Democratic, and'
the growing, but heretofore impotent
127
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
popular disapproval of the way the
elections were run in Baltimore, now
succeeded in enacting a practical rem-
edy. The control of the Baltimore po-
lice was taken out of the hands of the
local officials and vested in a commis-
sion designated by the Legislature.
Under the improved police system, dis-
order at the polls was prevented, and
a fair election made possible, and so
in the mvmicipal election of 1860, the
Know-Nothings were overwhelmingly
defeated. The reform party elected
its candidate for mayor by over 8,-
000 majority. Thus, after six years of
riotous control, the Know-Nothings
were driven forever from the citadel of
their power.*
Disorders at local elections were
frequent in New York and Phil-
adelphia, as well as in Balitmore,
in the years 1840 to 1860. Baltimore
and its Know-Nothings, however, car-
ried such excesses to the limit. Among
the Know-Nothing clubs of the city
*For a full an interesting account of the
Baltimore American party, see L. F.
Schneckebleir's "History of the Know-Noth-
ing Party in Maryland" (Johns Hopkins
University Studies, series 17, No. 4-5.)
128
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
which figured in these disorders, were
the Tigers, the Black Snakes, the
Eip Eaps, the Blood Tubs and more
especially the Plug Uglies. There were
clubs on the Democratic side such as
the Bloody Eii?hts, the Bloats an 1 the
Buttenders, no less euphonious in name
and disorderly in conduct; but after
1856 the Democrats virtually laid
down, leaving the Know-Nothings the
monopoly of disorder and ruffianism.
In the municipal election of October,
1856, the Plug Uglies flocked down to-
wards the Eighth ward to attack the
Democratic partisans, and in a riot,
lasting several hours, four men were
killed and over fifty wounded. In the
following month, at the presidential
election, this rioting was renewed, the
Know-Nothing clubs wheeling a cannon
through the streets; ten men were kill-
ed and over 250 wounded. In the elec-
tions of the succeeding years, the only
ward in which the Democrats could
vote without danger was the Eighth
ward, where the Irish element was
strong. In most other wards only
Know-Nothings, who gave the proper
signal, could get to the polls, all other
citizens being pushed aside or intim-
129
THE KXOW-NOTHING PARTY.
idated. In some instances, bodies of
voters to the number of a hundred or
more were cooped up in cellars until
the election was over. The governor
of Maryland sought, in 1857, to induce
the Know-Nothing mayor of Baltimore
to take effective steps against election
disorder, but his efforts were in vain.
In the following years the shoe maker's
awl became a favorite Know-Nothing
weapon of intimidation. Plug Ugly
clubs paraded the streets carrying
transparencies showing the figure of a
man running, with another, in pursuit
eticking an av/1 into him.
An interesting episode in the his-
tory of the state of Massachusetts was
its famous Know- Nothing Legislature,
which convened in the first week of the
year 1855. The upper house was sol-
idly Know- Nothing. The lower house
was also Know-Nothing, with the ex-
ception of one Democrat, one Whig and
one Free Soiler. One of the opposi-
tion papers suggested as a text for the
customary election sermon to be preach-
ed before this Legislature, "For we are
but of yesterday and know nothing."
(Job 8, 9). In this Legislature there
130
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
were about half as many farmers as the
average in previous state Legislatures,
but there were four times as many cler-
gymen. Twenty-four ministers sat in
the upper and lower houses.
The most notable event of the ses-
sion was the appointment of a commit-
tee to inspect the nunneries, the so-
called "smelling conunittee." This
committee, which was under the lead
of one Hiss, a "Grand Worthy Instruc-
tor" of a Know-Nothing council, be-
came a junketing affair, and carried
along with it a number of invited
guests. Its members lived at the best
hotels and drank expensive wines at
the cost of the state. The hotel ex-
penses of a notorious woman were in-
cluded among its many vouchers.
A writer in The Boston Advertiser
of that period thus describes the com-
mittees' visit to a convent:
"The gentlemen — we presume we
must call members of the Legislature
by this name — roamed over the whole
house from attic to cellar. No part of
the house was enough protected by re-
spect for the common coiirtesies of civ-
ilized life to be spared the examination.
The ladies' dresses hanging in their
131
THE KyO]y-XOTHING PARTY.
wardrobes were tossed over. The par-
ty invaded the chapel and showed their
respect — as Protestants, we presume —
for the One God whom all Christians
worship, by talking loudly with their
hats on; while the ladies shrank in
terror at the desecration of a spot
which they hallowed."
Under pressure of public clamor, the
Legislature began to investigate its in-
vestigating committee, and three suc-
cessive committees were necessary for
the task. Hiss was finally expelled
from the House by the votes, so he
claimed, of men who had enjoyed the
hospitality of the committee.
The following lines were written by
some satirist of the time:
"One after one the honored Bay-leaves
fade.
And ancient glories wither in the shade;
The Solon's of the state, at duty's call,
Have hissed a loving member from the
hall.
Take courage, Joseph, in thy great ado;
The world has hissed the Legislature, too."
Further investigations followed,
bringing to light a series of petty steal-
ings. George W. Haines, in his inter-
esting sketch of this KJaow-Nothing
Legislature (The American Historical
Asscn. vol. 8, part 1, page 187)
132
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
states that the notion was widespread
among its members that cheating the
government was only a venial offense.
It was, says Congdon (Kecollections of
a Journalist, 146), "the most illy- as-
sorted legislative body that ever met in
this country."
The only distinctively nativist meas-
ure passed by the Legislature was a
proposed amendment to the constitu-
tion restricting office-holding to native-
born Americans, and requiring twenty-
one years residence for naturalization.
The proposed amendment, however, was
never submitted to popular vote, nor
did it receive the endorsement of the
succeeding Legislature. Another meas-
ure, in which we have the prototype of
such legislation as the Bennett law of
Wisconsin and the Edward's law of
Illinois (A. D. 1890), was introduced
by one Johnson, who claimed that he
sought a seat in the Legislature for that
express purpose. This measure pro-
posed to extend public supervision over
all private schools, to the end that the
state should see that its requirements
in the matter of education were met by
the course of study and text-books, and,
presumably, the teachers employed in
133
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
sueli private and church schools. John-
son's measure, however, was not press-
ed by his colleagues.
Nevv' York city, though the cradle of
nativisra, and the headquarters of the
controlling Know-lSTothing clique, was
not captured, politically, by the Amer-
ican party, although strenuous efforts
were put forth in that direction. In
the local election of 1854, James W.
Barker appeared as the Ivnow-JSTothing
candidate for mayor. The factions of
the Democratic party imited on Fer-
nando Wood as their candidate, and
the Whigs nominated John J. Her-
riek. Both Wood and Herrick were at
that time members of the Know-Noth-
ing party. Wood was elected by a
narrow plurality: the Know-Nothings
claimed that Barker had been counted
out. He received 18,547 votes. Wood
was re-elected mayor at the city elec-
tion in the fall of 1856 over the Know-
Nothing candidate, Isaac O. Barker, a
cousin of James W. Barker. Wood's
plurality was about 9,000. In the local
elections subsequent to 1856, the Know-
Nothings did not depend on their own
strength, but sought combinations.
134
THE KXOW-NOTEIXG PARTY.
Their vote dwindled from 8,500 in 1857,
to a little over 4,000 in 1859. After
1856 the Republican party had become
the real competitor against the Demo-
cracy in Xew York city, and the Know-
Nothing party sank to a position of
a third party. By the beginning of
1800 it had disappeared from Xew
York city as a party organization.
In the municipal election of May,
1854, Conrad, the Whig candidate, was
elected mayor of Philadelphia, receiv-
ing about 29,506 votes to 21,100 cast for
Vaux, Democrat. The election was
won by the Know-Xothing councils
quietly determining to support the can-
didacy of Conrad. Subsequently, May-
or-elect Conrad took the position that
all policemen should be of American
birth, thus indicating that he was in
sympathy with the Know-Xothing
movement, although not elected as the
nominee of that party. In the election
of the following year the Know-Xoth-
ing party was successful in electing its
caudidat^is to all minor city offices voted
upon ; but in the municipal elections of
May, 1856, the Democrats returned to
power in Philadelphia, electing their
135
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
candidate, Vaiix, for mayor, by sever-
al thousand majority. In 1858, and
again in 1860, the candidates of the
opposing parties, adopting the name of
"the People's party," triumphed over
the Democrats in Philadelphia's muni-
cipal elections.
The nativist sentiment was always
strong in the city of Boston. Thomas
Aspinwall Davis, nominated by the na-
tive American party, was mayor of Bos-
ton in 1845, but the wave of Nativism
soon subsided. The following year the
Whigs regained political control of
Boston. In 1854 the Native-American
or Know-Nothing party elected Dr.
Jerome Crownshield Smith mayor of
Boston. He showed himself extremely
fertile in making suggestions. In Win-
sor's History of Boston, (III. page 259)
we read the "he (Smith) was never tak-
en quite seriously as a chief magis-
trate." In the municipal election of
December, 1855, the nominee of the
Citizen's movement was elected over the
Know-Nothing candidate by 2,000 ma-
jority. Boston was satisfied with one
year of Know-Nothing rule.
In Louisville, Ky., the Know-Noth-
136
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
ing movement was signalized in August
1855, by an election riot, the occasion
being referred to as "Bloody Monday"
in the annals of that city. Shaler in
his History of Kentucky, (page 219),
tells us that the disorder was occasioned
by "roughs of the Native-American
party attacking the Catholic people."
Twenty-two persons were killed, two-
thirds of whom were residents of the
Irish qiiarter, and sixteen houses burn-
ed. In this election, which was for
state officers, Moorhead, Know-Nothing
candidate for Governor of Kentucky
was elected, receiving 68,816 votes to
65,413 for Clarke the Democratic can-
didate.
"In Alabama, the new party made
some effort before 1855, and in the lo-
cal conflict at Mobile, the Catholic
property near that city was burned by
American partisans" (Du Bose. Life of
Yancey, p. 291) . The Democratic mayor
of Mobile, Jones M, Withers, affiliated
in 1854 with the American party; but
subsequently threw it over and ran
again as a Democrat for mayor of Mo-
bile and was re-elected.
The Know-Nothing movement ap-
peared in a less pronounced form in
137
THE EXOW-XOTHIXG PARTY.
many other cities besides New York,
Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore and
Louisville. It was manifest in the local
politics of Cincinnati. In Detroit in
the municipal elections of 1855 a
Know-Xothing candidate for mayor re-
ceived 2,000 votes to 2,700 for the Dem-
ocratic candidate and in San Francisco
the Kaow-Xothings in the fall elections
of 1855 polled 1,500 votes out of a total
of 12,000.
138
XI.
PERSONNEL.
HENRY WILSON tells us (ch. 32,
Rise and Fall of the Slave Power),
that hundreds of those who joined the
Know-Nothing movement eared little
fur its avowed principles, but were ea-
ger to possess and use its machinery.
"I did not dream," says George W.
Julian (Political Recollections p. 143),
"that in less than two years the men
composing this mob would be found
denying their membership in this se-
cret order, or confessing it with
shame."
Edward Everett Hale says, "it was
distinctly a Philistine movement, so
far as its leaders went." As for the
rank and file, they were not anywhere
the better element of the native-born
population. A writer in The NeAV
England Magazine (n. s. Vol. 15, p.
139
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
82), made a careful study of the roster
of niembership at Worcester, Mass., in
3854. He finds that a large percen-
tage, in signing the rolls, misspelled
the names of the streets iipon which
they lived; that there were few profes-
sional men among them, and that
where they were tax-payers, they aver-
aged far below the per <;apita of the
community at large.
Thousands went into the new move-
ment unthinkingly, but for the novel-
ty of the thing, and without under-
standing its character. The case of
Ulysses S. Grant is an illustration. He
tells us in his "Memoirs" (Vol. 1, p.
169) : "Most of my neighbors had
kno^vn me as an officer in the army
with Whig proclivities. They had
been on the same side, and on the
death of their party many had become
Know-Nothings or members of the
American party. There was a lodg-.
near me [he then resided on a farm
in the vicinity of St. Louis], and I was
invited. to join it. I accepted the in-
vitation; was initiated and attended a
meeting just one week later; and never
went to another afterwards. * *
But all secret oath-bound societies are
140
THE ENOW-NOTHING PARTY.
dangerous to any nation. ^- * No
political society can, or ought, to ex-
ist where one of its corner stones is
opposition to freedom of thought, or
the right of worshiping God 'accord-
ing to the dictates of one's own con-
science.' " Subsequently, Grant voted
(1856) for James Buchanan, the Dem-
ocratic candidate for president.
Undoubtedly, thousands of the south-
ern Wliigs went into the new American
party as unconsciously, so to speak, as
did Ulysses S. Grant in 1854. It
would probably be incorrect to impute
bigotry to many of those public men
from the south, once rei^resenting the
Wiiig- party, but subsequently absorbed,
and going with the mass of their consti-
tuents, into the Know-Xothing ranks.
John J. Crittenden of Kentucky, John
Bell of Tennessee, both members of the
United States Senate, were classed
with the American party. Crittenden
had been for forty years in public life,
a member of the cabinet and rich in
the honors of the Whig party. Bell,
spoken of as "the generous Bell," had
also served in the cabinet of a Whig
president. These two union-loving
men found themselves stranded as po-
141
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
litical orphans in the last years of tho
American party, with whose more pro-
scriptive principles it is fair, as well
as charitable, to assume they had no
real sympathy. Senator Adams of Mis-
sissippi was another Know-Nothing
United States senator.
Anthony Kennedy of Maryland, was
elected United States senator by the
Know-Nothing Legislature of that
state. Sam Houston, hero of the no-
table struggle of the Texas republic
against Mexico, and who was United
States senator from Texas from 1853-
59, was affiliated with the American
party, and undoubtedly leaned towards
some of its principles. In 1854 he
was questioned by Senator Mallory, on
the floor of the Senate, as to whether
he approved of the Know-Nothing doc-
trine that Roman Catholics should be
ineligible for office. He replied that
he would not vote for such a law, and
could not approve of it. Houston re-
ceived a few votes for president in tho
Democratic national convention of
1852, in the Know-Nothing convention
of 1856 and in the Union Constitu-
tional convention of 1860. He sup-
ported Fillmore in 1856. Fillmore'3
142
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
associate on the presidential ticket in
1856 was Donnelson of Tennessee, a
nephew of Andrew Jackson, Donnel-
son had joined the Know-Nothing or-
der with other Whig politicians of his
state in 1853. Henry Winter Davis of
Baltimore was member of Congress, first
as a WTiig in 1854 and subsequently
as a Know-Xothing in 1856-58. Here
he was the orator of the new party in
all controversies ("the Rupert of de-
bate")- He was undoubtedly smirched
with some of the bigotry, and expressed
not a few of the rabid sentiments of
the movement. This may have been due
to his habit of epigram as well as to
his desire to please the Know-Nothing
clubs of Baltimore. His Know-Noth-
ing constituents censured him for
helping to elect Pennington speaker
of the House in 1860. He was agaiii
in Congress diiring the civil war as a
Kepublican.
Among other "southern Americans,"
as they came to be called, were Kenneth
Kaynor of North Carolina, a strong
unionist advocate; he, it was, who for-
nuilated the third, or union degree, of
the order; Garrett Davis of Kentucky,
Humphrey Marshall of Louisville, the
143
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
]-itter the acknowledged leader of the
border-state Know-Nothings, ex-Con-
gi'essman Botts of Richmond, who was
mentioned for the presidential nomina-
tion in 1856, Call of Florida, Zollicoffer
of Tennessee, and Bartlett of Kentuc-
ky, who sought the vice-presidential
nomination in 1856.
In the presidential campaign of 1856,
the I^ow-Nothings taunted the Re-
publicans with the charge that Fre-
mont was a Catholic, and the Republi-
cans retorted that Fillmore, the Know-
Nothing candidate, was not a Know-
Xothing; but although he had begun
political life as an anti-Mason, Fill-
more, in his lust for the presidency,
had consented to be made a third de-
gTee Know-Nothing at Buffalo in 1855.
His public expressions were, however,
free from religious intolerance. Eras-
tus Brooks, whom the Knovi-Nothings
nominated as governor of New York
in 1856, but who failed of election,
was prominent in the public eye on ac-
count of his discussion with Bishop
Hu.ghes over Catholic Church prop-
erty and its tenure.
Henry Gardner, elected governor of
Massachusetts by the American party
111
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
in 1854, and again in 1855, H. M.
Fuller, leader of the conservative
Know-Nothings of Pennsylvania, L. D.
Campbell of Ohio, leader of the anti-
slavery Know-Nothings, Governor
Johnson of Pennsylvania, were other
public men identified with the Know-
Nothing movement. N. P, Banks, who
succeeded Gardner as governor of
Massachusetts, was elected to Congress
in 1852, as he afterwards admitted, by
a union of the Democrats and Know-
Nothings. "In the spring or summer
of 1854, Gen. Banks asked me whether
I intended to join the Know-Nothings.
I said no ; that I had left politics, and
that I intended to practice law. He
said in reply: 'I am in politics and I
must go on.'" (Boutwell's Sixty
Years in Public Affairs, I., 238.)
Banks was chosen speaker of the
House after a prolonged contest, in
February, 1856, Thereafter he affili-
ated with the Republicans. He be-
came a general in the civil war, and
returned to Congress after its close,
serving in the lower house from 1865-
74, and again in 1888.
Henry Wilson, afterwards vice-pres-
ident of the United States from 1872-
145
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
76, after being black-balled by one
Know-Nothing lodge, succeeded in ob-
taining admission to another. The
Know-Nothing Legislature of Massa-
chusetts elected him United States sen-
ator in 1855. He led the bolt of the
free state delegates from the Know-
Nothing convention at Philadelphia
in the same year. After that he cast
his lot with the Republican party. He
is said to have regretted his early con-
nection with the Know-Nothing move-
ment. Congdon (Recollections of a
Journalist, 146), says: "Wlien he was
running for the vice-presidency, and
Catholic votes were desirable, if he did
not himself deny the fact [that he had
joined the Know-Nothings], he suffer-
ed others to deny it."
Another picturesque figure in this
movement was George Law of New
York city. Law was the son of a north
of Ireland immigrant. He began
life as a hod carrier, just as Wilson be-
gan life as a day laborer. By the year
1850, however, Law was a wealthy con-
tractor, and a liberal patron of the
nativist movement. His ambition was
to be the presidential candidate of the
American party in 1856, and he had
146
TEE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
the support of a number of journals
and a large personal following, per-
haps held together by his financial
largesses. In the presidential conven-
tion of 1856, however, Law received but
twenty-seven votes out of a total of
over two hundred; after which we hear
little more of him. He died in 1881.
Richard W. Thompson of Indiana,
who was afterwards secretary of the
navy in the cabinet of President Hayes,
was a Know-Nothing in 1856. Greorge
W. Julian, in his Political Recollec-
tions (p. 155), referring to the cam-
paign of 1856, says: "Eichard W.
Tnompson, then the professed cham-
pion of Fillmore, but in reality the
stipendiary of the Democrats, de-
nounced the Republicans as abolition-
ists." Thompson was evidently a
Know-Nothing from conviction, judg-
ing by his "Footprints of the Jesuits,"
and other publications which came
from his pen during the period 1872-
95.
Four Know-Nothing governors were
prominent in the Philadelphia conven-
tion of the party, Jime, 1855 : Gov-
ernors Gardner of Massachusetts,
Fletcher of Vermont, Johnson of Penn-
147
THE KNOV/-NOTHING PARTY.
sylvania and Brown of Tennessee.
Wliitney (Defence of the American
Party, p. 303), says:
"The question has often been asked:
'Why cannot an American paper be
sustained?' The answer is plain.
Every attempt to establish one, until
recently, has been made odious through
the Romish and partisan presses of the
country." Americans feared to sub-
scribe for such a paper, "lest they
should share in the general obloquy, or
suffer in their business and private re-
lations." "An advertisement in them
was- regarded as a dangerous experi-
ment."
But the Know-Nothing movement
was not without a number of weekly
esponents and at Worcester, Mass., it
established a daily organ. At Louis-
ville, the brilliant George D. Prentiss
lent his pen to the proscriptive move-
ment; and his paper was held largely
responsible for the murders and incen-
diarism of Bloody Monday in that
city.
148
M
XII.
AFTERWARDS.
OST of those who continued to
adhere to the American party
during- the latter years of its activity,
voted, in 1860, for Bell and Everett,
candidates of the Union party for pres-
ident and vice-president. Bell had
been a senator from Tennessee (1853-9)
outspoken in favoring the nativist
restrictions upon naturalization. The
personal following of Erastus Brooks
in the state of New York, made up
largely of the more consistent Know-
Nothings, were especially pronounced
for the Bell and Everett ticket.
This was the end of the American
party, however, as an organized influ-
ence. The Order of United Americans,
which had grown and declined with
the growth and decline of the Know-
Nothing movement, maintained a fee-
149
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
ble existence up to 1866, although ac-
cording to its last grand sachem,
Charles E. Gildersleeve, the active
membership in New York city in Jan-
uary, 1863, was " so small, it could
have met in one room." There were
attempts to reorganize the movement
after the close of the war. The old
head of the Know-Nothing movement,
James W. Barker, launched a new or-
ganization, called the Order of Amer-
ican Shield, which afterwards took the
name of the Order of the American
Union. It aimed to become a politi-
cal influence, and established branches
in sixteen states. But its life was fee-
ble, and by the year 1880 it had every-
where died oiit. Some of the veteran
members of the Know-Nothing society
organized a social club in New York
city in 187Y, reviving for their club
name the old title of "Washington
Chapter, O. U. A."
The various hereditary patriotic so-
cieties, the organization of which was
suggested by the recurrence of the cen-
tennial anniversary of Revolutionary
events, appear to be entirely free from
the nativist and anti-Catholic bias.
150
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
Among these orders are the Sons of
the American Revolution, organized
in 1875, the Daughters of the Ameri-
can Revolution, organized in 1892, the
Sons of the War of 1812, the Sons of
the Colonial Wars, the Colonial Dames,
etc.
The "United Order of American
Mechanics," organized in 1845, and
having today a membership, variously
reported as from 40,C0 to 60,000; the
"Junior Order of American Mechan-
ics," organized in 1853, and establish-
ed in over thirty states, at present
with a membership of about 100,000,
and the "Patriotic Order of Sons of
America," established in 1847, with a
membership of about 50,000, are sur-
vivals of the nativist movement. Their
membership is restricted to native-born
Americans, and they adopt several of
the old Know-Nothing planks in their
platforms. They are probably every-
where anti-Catholic in their political
activity. The bulk of the membership
of these organizations is found in the
middle states. The Knights of Malta,
established in 1889, with a membership
which has varied up to 25,000, is a ben-
eficial organization, with general pur-
151
TEE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
poses similar to those of tlie Junior
Order of United American Mechanics,
but more distinctly Protestant in its
constitution.
Another organization, pronouncedly
anti-Catholic in its activity, is the
"National League for the Protection
of American Institutions," organized
in New York in 1889, with John Jay
as president, and Rev. James M. King
as secretary. Its objects were to es-
tablish "constitutional and legislative
safeguards for the American public
school system," and to prevent the ap-
propriation of public funds to secta-
rian or denominational institutions.
It outlined a proposed "sixteerlh
amendment" to the constitution of the
United States along these lines; and
it secured the endorsement of a num-
ber of the leading American denomi-
nations for its proposition, but the idea
failed to receive the required approval
of Congress. The National League
made itself conspicuously active in se-
curing the confirmation by the Senate
of Governor Morgan and Rev. Dr.
Dorchester, whom President Harrison
had nominated at the head of the In-
dian bureau. This was done with the
152
THE KNOW 'NOTHING PARTY.
express understanding that these ap-
pointees would discourage further ap-
propriations to the Catholic Indian
schools. In New York it opposed the
freedom of worship bill, and although
the measure was finally enacted, the
League succeeded in blocking its pas-
sage for a number of years. This meas-
ure extended the benefits of the con-
stitution, respecting freedom of con-
science, to the inmates of the state re-
formatory and penal institutions. The
league also opposed the building of
the Catholic chapel at West Point.
The chapel was subsequently built by
an enabling act of Congress. In its
efforts to amend several of the state
constitutions in the direction of pro-
hibiting the appropriation of public
funds to sectarian institutions, Rev.
James M. King, in his work, "Facing
the Twentieth Century," (page 530)
tells us that the National League
met defeat in the state of Maine
through the efforts of the Protestant
institutions, which feared that a judi-
cial interpretation of the word "sec-
tarian," would cut off certain appro-
priations of public funds, which they
were accustomed to receive.
153
TEE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
There were many episodes, between
the close of the civil war and the rise
of the "new Know-Nothingism," sym-
bolized in the A. P. A., which bore a re-
lation to the Know-Nothing movement
of the past, and which evidenced the
persistence of the sentiment upon
which that movement was builded."
The Culturkampf, in Germany, after
the close of the Franco-Prussian war
(1872-6), had its echoes in the recru-
descence of anti-papal sentiment in
the United States. There were not
wanting many pulpit divines, even
some public men, like Richard W.
Thompson, afterwards secretary of the
navy under President Hayes, who be-
lieved that the Culturkampf should be
adapted to conditions here, and vig-
orously pushed.
*A riot involving' sectarian antipathies oc-
curred at New York, July 12, 1871. It grew
out of an attack made upon the Orangemen,
who on July 12, 1S70, celebrated the anniver-
sary of the battle of the Boyne. They ad-
vertised their intention of organizing a no-
table parade July 12, 1871 On the other hand
the Hibernian element threatened to pre-
vent this parade. The protection of the
'State and city authorities was sought
against this Irish menace. When the day
came, 100 Orangemen paraded the streets
guarded by five militia regiments. Near the
154
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
In the '70's, the Catholic parochial
school movement of the United States
received a definite and more systematic
organization. The latent Kaow-iSroth-
ing spirit caught eagerly, as a signal
for aggressive discussion, at some par-
agraphs in a Des Moines speech of
President Grant, wherein he urged the
necessity of keeping church and state
absolutely separate, and preventing the
division of the school fund. The pen-
cil of the cartoonist, Thomas Nast, in
these years, was devoted in Harper's
Weekly to embittering public sentiment
against the Catholic Church on the
school question.
In the presidential election of 1876,
we find the following notice taken at
this issue in the platforms of the Re-
publican and Democratic parties : Sec-
tion 7 of the Eepublican platform rec-
ognizes "the public school system of the
several states as the bulwark of the
comer of Eighth avenue and Twenty-fourth
street, an Irish tenement district, the pa-
rade was assailed with stones and some
shots were fired. The militia met this at-
tack by a volley which killed fifty-one of
the assailants and bystanders; three of the
militia men were killed. Public opinion in
New York sustained the authorities in their
action.
155
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
American republic." The platform
further recommends an amendment to
the constitution prohibiting the appro-
priation of [ublic funds to sectarian
schools or institutions. The Democrat-
ic platform refers to "the false issue
with which they [the Republican party]
would enkindle sectarian strife with
respect to the public schools," which
should be maintained "without preju-
dice to any class, sect or creed." The
Republican platform of 1880 substan-
tially reiterates the plank of 1876.
The Democratic platform of 1880 re-
cites that common schools have been
fostered and protected by that party.
In the presidential election of 1880,
most of the New York papers. Demo-
cratic as well as Republican, condemn-
ed the nomination by the Democrats
of William R. Grace as mayor of New
York. It was the first time that a
Catholic had been nominated for that
office, and the school question, and pa-
pal allegiance, and the impolicy of
weighing down the Democratic Na-
tional ticket with such a handicap, were
vigorously dilated upon. Grace was
elected, but he ran many thousands be-
hind the vote New York city gave
156
THE ENOW-NOTHING PARTY.
General Hancock, the Democratic can-
didate for president. In the last days
of the campaign of 1884, James G.
Blaine, the Eepublican candidate for
president, was given a reception by
nearly a thousand Protestant ministers,
at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, New York.
Their spokesman. Rev. Dr. Burchard,
in a fervent address, alluded to the Dem-
ocratic party as one whose antecedents
were "Bum, Romanism and Rebellion."
Blaine saw the impolicy of the remark
at the time, and his managers sought
to have all note of it suppressed in tha
newspapers. Democratic politicians
got hold of it, and worked it with such
good effect, in recalling the drift of
"the Irish vote" to the Republican
standard, that in the close state of
Xew York it made a difference of a
few thousand votes against Blaine.
These votes, nevertheless, deprived him
of the electoral vote of New York, and,
as a consequence, lost him the presi-
dency.
A Boston school issue in 18S6, fur-
nishes a striking evidence of the eas-
ily inflammable anti-Catholic senti-
ment of that community. It arose
over a very small matter — a foot-note
157
/
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
in Swinton's General Ilistory, then in
use in the Boston public schools. This
foot-note referred to "the sale of in-
dulgences" by the Catholic Church, as
a cause of the Protestant reformation.
Members of the Boston school board
who were Catholics, succeeded in con-
vincing the publishers that their book
should be gotten out without this foot-
note. Immediately, there was a bitter
public controversy on the subject of
indulgences, and the question came up
in the election of the retiring school
board with such effect that a board
satisfactory to the ultra-Protestant
view of this historical matter was
elected. Afterwards Professor George
Adams, of the department of history
of Yale university, in a text-book of
European History (p. 302), took a
view of the question (undoubtedly
clariiied by this discussion), which in-
dicated a conviction that the Catho-
lics of Boston were rather justified
in their contention.
An "American party" showed itself,
briefly, in the state politics of Cali-
fornia in 1886. Frank Pixley, pub-
lisher of The Argonaut, a weekly liter-
ary journal, anti-Catholic in its views,
158
THE KNOW-NOTHING PARTY.
but of much literary merit, seems to
have led tliis movement. It endorsed
Swift, the Republican candidate for
governor, but he repudiated its en-
dorsement with an open and manly as-
sertion of the doctrines of the consti-
tution. The Democratic candidate,
Bartlett, was elected governor by a
few hundred plurality. The Ameri-
can party mouthpiece asserted that, if
Swift had kept silent, he would have
won. The American party disappeared
from the politics of California in the
ensuing year.
159
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