Know‐Nothing Party

Know‐Nothing Party. The group that would come to be known by this name arose in the 1840s amid nativist sentiment roused by the influx of Irish Catholics to East Coast cities. The American Republican party (later simply the American party) was founded in New York City in 1843; in coalition with the Whigs, it elected a nativist mayor of New York in 1844. Advocating a ban on Catholic and foreign‐born officeholders and a twenty‐year time limit for naturalization, the party made headway in Philadelphia also, sparking anti‐Catholic riots. It gained momentum in 1849 when Charles B. Allen founded the secret Order of the Star Spangled Banner in New York. Lodges soon spread to other cities. When questioned, members were instructed to answer “I know nothing,” leading the New York Tribune to deride them in 1853 as “Know Nothings.”

In the early 1850s, as the Whig party split over slavery in the territories, a Whig faction that supported the Compromise of 1850, called the Union Whigs, aligned with the American party. In 1854, the Whig James W. Barker replaced Allen as leader. The party now added to its platform a new theme, pro‐Unionism, first enunciated by Thomas Whitney, editor of a nativist periodical called the Republic. The nation faced two major threats, Whitney warned: abolitionism and politicized Catholicism. Members now swore to do everything possible to preserve the Union. At a party convention in 1855, when the leadership added a platform plank proclaiming: “Congress ought not to legislate upon the subject of slavery within the Territories” northern delegates opposed to slavery extension bolted, dividing the party. In 1856, the southern Know Nothings nominated Millard Fillmore for president. The election proved a disaster for the party, however. Amid deep sectional divisions evident in the vote for Democrat James Buchanan and Republican John C. Frémont, Fillmore carried only the slave state of Maryland. The party subsequently disbanded, and organized nativism subsided for a time.
See also Antebellum Era; Anti‐Catholic Movement; Antislavery; Civil War: Causes; Democratic Party; Immigration; Irish Americans; Nativist Movement; Political Parties; Republican Party; Roman Catholicism.

Bibliography

Ray A. Billington , The Protestant Crusade, 1800–1860: A Study of the Origins of American Nativism, 1938.
Jean H. Baker , Ambivalent Americans: The Know Nothing Party in Maryland, 1977.
Tyler Abinder , Nativism and Slavery: The Northern Know Nothings and the Politics of the 1850s, 1992.

Thomas J. Curran