The Know Nothing Party in 1854 and 1856

Begun as a secret society in New York in 1849, the Know Nothings or American Party as they
appeared on national ballots in 1856, could be traced to the virulent nativist movement of the 1830s

and 1840s. Fiercely anti-immigration, Know Nothings aimed their wrath at Irish and German
migrants, many of whom were Roman Catholic. The Know Nothings would achieve some political
success during the mid-term elections of 1854. In the 1856 general election led by former President
Millard Fillmore, the party split over the Kansas-Nebraska Act but sill gained 871,731 popular votes
and 8 electoral votes.
Know Nothing Success in the Mid 1850s
Paul Boller, a Professor Emeritus of History at Texas Christian University, attributes the Know
Nothing name to an initial attempt at secrecy. When members of the party were asked about the
organization, they were directed to answer, I dont know As the party gained support, however, the
secrecy gave way to public awareness. America For Americans, Know Nothings chanted, demanding
a twenty-one year period of naturalization and the banning of any non-native born Americans from
office-holding.
Irish immigrants, clustered in the larger urban centers, bore the brunt of nativist ire. Seen as charity
cases dumped onto American shores by a British government willing to assist immigrants in order to
lessen the pressure on poverty relief, the Irish were willing to work for lower wages in unskilled
jobs, taking away work from native-born Americans. Fear of Catholicism also contributed.

German immigrants, flooding America after the failed 1848 revolutions, also attracted fear and
suspicion. Like the Irish, they were Catholic and did not keep the Sabbath the way Protestants did.
And Germans brought beer, a particular evil among New Englanders that still clung to Puritan
values. Finally, Germans were perceived as socialists, identified with the various liberal movements
in Europe.
These fears enabled the Know Nothings to achieve some success in the 1854 mid-term election. In
both the North and the South, the party attracted former Whigs searching for new political homes.
In his valuable study on 1850s American politics and the expansion of slavery, Harvard University
Historian Frederick Merk (died 1977) isolates Whig strength in 1854 to New York, Pennsylvania,
Missouri, and Vermont with small pockets in mid-Virginia, Illinois, Ohio, and Tennessee.

The Presidential Election of 1856

By 1856 the Know Nothing Party was
beginning to disintegrate in the wake of the
ill-advised Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854.
Anti-Nebraska Know Nothings and Whigs
bolted to support the Republican Partys
candidate, John C. Fremont. By now the
American Party, the Know Nothings
nominated former president Millard
Fillmore.

Professor Merks analysis of the 1856 election

demonstrates a remarkable change for the
party over the two-year interval. The party had
lost ground in Missouri and the Northeast.
Small pockets of Know Nothing strength
existed in every southern state except South
Carolina. Fillmores 8 electoral votes came from
Maryland, although his popular vote was
871,731. (407)

None of the national political leaders respected the Know Nothings. Stephen Douglas, in an October
6, 1855 letter to Howell Cobb, wrote that Abolitionism, Know Nothingism, and all the other isms are
akin to each other and are in allianceagainst national Democracy. In several other letters Douglas
equates Know Nothingism with Abolitionism.

Abraham Lincoln, quoted by University of Massachusetts Professor Stephen Oates, preferred to live
in Russia if the Know Nothings ever succeeded. According to Lincoln, When the Know Nothings get
control, it will read all me are created equal, except Negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics. (165)
Southern bolters from the Know Nothing Party would emerge in 1860 as the Constitutional
Unionists, led by former pro-Union Whig John Bell. After 1856, the Know Nothings ceased as a viable
political party, northern supporters joining the rapidly rising Republican Party. Yet another decade
of xenophobic Americanism had come to an end, although it would not be the last time nativism
dominated political extremes.
Sources:
Paul F. Boller, Jr. Presidential Campaigns From George Washington to George W. Bush (Oxford
University Press, 2004).

Stephen A Douglas, The Letters of Stephen A Douglas, edited by Robert W. Johannsen (University of
Illinois Press, 1961).
Frederick Merk, History of the Westward Movement (Alfred A. Knopf, 1978).
Stephen B. Oates, The Approaching Fury: Voices of the Storm, 1820-1861 (Harper-Collins, 1997).
Page Smith, The Nation Comes of Age: A Peoples History of the Ante-Bellum Years Volume
Four,(McGraw-Hill, 1981).
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