Know Nothings

[scandal 951]

I'm currently reading "Team of Rivals", Doris Kearns Goodwin's account of Lincoln's presidency.

The section I quote below deals with the formation of the Republican Party in the mid 1850s.

I found it quite fascinating, particularly the anti-immigration Know Nothing Party. It reminds me so much of today's Teabaggers.

Lincoln's response to the Know Nothings, and his reference to abandoning the USA for Russia (!! ) is also astonishingly 'modern' in its tone.

It really makes one wonder if the foment that led to the dissolution of the Whigs and creation of the GOP a century and a half ago may be repeating today. Are we looking at the end of the GOP as we've known it, and creation of a some new alignment based upon neo-conservatives in one faction, and more centrist Republicans in yet another? For those who believe that America's two-party system must remain static and eternal, here's some food for thought. By the way, the reference to "anti-Nebraska" means those opposed to the Kansas-Nebraska Act which sanctioned continued expansion of slavery into the western territories.

Once again, at a moment when Lincoln's career appeared to have come to a halt, Seward and Chase were moving forward. Chase's leadership during the political uprising in the North that followed the passage of the Nebraska Act had proved, in the words of Carl Schurz, to be "the first bugle call for the formation of a new party". Under the pressure of the mounting sectional division, both national parties - the Whigs and the Democrats - had begun to fray. The Whig Party - the party of [Henry] Clay and [Daniel] Webster, [Abraham] Lincoln, [Henry] Seward, [Edward] Bates - had been the first to decline as "conscience Whigs" opposed to slavery, split from "cotton Whigs", who desired an accommodation with slavery. In the 1852 election, the divided Whig Party had been buried in a Democratic landslide. But the passage of the Nebraska Act brought serious defections in the Democratic Party as well, as Northerners unwilling to sanction the existence of slavery looked for a new home, leaving the party in control of the Southern Democrats.

The political upheaval was enormously complicated by the emergence of the Know Nothing Party, which had formed in reaction to an unprecedented flood of immigration in the 1840s and 1850s. In 1845, about 20 million people inhabited the United States. During the next decade, nearly 3 million immigrants arrived, mainly from Ireland and Germany. This largely Catholic influx descended on a country that was mostly native-born Protestant, anti-Catholic in sympathy. The Know Nothings fought to delay citizenship for the new immigrants and bar them from voting. In the early 1850s, they won elections in several cities, swept to statewide victory in Massachusetts, and gained surprising ground in New York. Newspapers and preachers assaulted "popery"; there were bloody anti-Catholic riots in several Northern cities.

Lincoln had nothing but disdain for the discriminatory beliefs of the Know Nothings. "How can any one who abhors the oppression of the negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people?" he queried his friend Joshua Speed. "Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are crated equal'. We now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics.' When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty - to Russia, for instance."

But this party too, was soon to founder on the issue of slavery. Many Northern Know Nothings were also antislavery, and finally the anti-Nebraska cause proved more compelling, of more import, than resistance to foreign immigration. The split between the party's Northern and Southern factions would diminish its strength, though the nativist feelings that had fueled its birth would continue to influence the political climate even after the party itself collapsed and died.

With the Whigs disappearing and the Democrats under Southern domination, all those opposed to the extension of slavery found their new home in what eventually became the Republican Party, comprised of "conscience Whigs", "independent Democrats", and antislavery Know Nothings. In state after state, new coalitions with different names came into being - the Fusion Party, the People's Party, the Anti-Nebraska Party. In Ripon, Wisconsin an 1854 gathering of antislavery men proposed the name "Republican Party", and other state conventions soon followed suit.

[spookyturtle 9,466]

I'm sergeant Shultz, I know nothing.

[scandal 951]

I'm sergeant Shultz, I know nothing.

Now listen young man, you're gonna get a big fat F in American History unless you back and read post #1 in full!

[spookyturtle 9,466]

But I'm not from Australia, so I'm dumb.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Interesting read. I had brought up the Know Nothings before in some of our immigration threads before. You listen to those who now who talk of "anchor babies" and you read what the Know Nothing Party was saying and the parallels are quite obvious.

[William33 110]

Today would be a good start for the educated.....

[Pinocchio Liberal 268]

Today would be a good start for the educated.....

You takin your own advice? Hmmmmmmmm? Have a LOOK William!

We be rockin the bullSHITE HUH! Make it BETTER SON!

Edited December 8, 2009 by ={Rogue}=

[Pinocchio Liberal 268]

Quit talkin and START DOIN! GEEEEEEEEEEZ!

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Quit jabberin and slobberin

[Pinocchio Liberal 268]

Im gonna go feed the hungry this weekend what you gonna doooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo?

Quit jabberin and slobberin

Wipe your lip ya lil fuckin #### wipe!

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

You should stop looking in mirrors. Then you might take your own advice

[scandal 951]

Today would be a good start for the educated.....

[Pinocchio Liberal 268]

You should stop looking in mirrors. Then you might take your own advice

Nuff said! Someday you gonna dance wit them LIARS!

[scandal 951]

Typed in that first post from the book, I did.

Great effort, I spent. For you lot, I did.

Hijacked my thread, you have.

Made a laughingstock of it, you did.

His revenge he shall have, Pai Mei.

[Chica Yeyé 41]

Message for scandal:

This is a book I relatively enjoyed; but I can recommend many others if you feel so inclined.

signed, Bren

(####### this dude, scandal is MY friend, not his)