The Know Nothing Party
The 1850s were a chaotic time in American politics as the issue of slavery become the dominant issue and divided the existing party coalitions, so much so that it resulted in the dissolution of the Whig party, one of the two main parties, the other being Democrats, of the prior two decades. One of the short-lived parties of that period that emerged during the slow collapse of the Whigs was a merger of semi-secret nativist organizations, former Whigs, and disaffected Democrats who defended slavery but felt pushing its expansion could destroy the Union. While technically labeled the American or Native American party, it was commonly referred to as the Know Nothing party, not because of ignorance but because of the tactic of members of those original secretive organizations replying that they “knew nothing” about them when questioned. More importantly, it was the first real major third party to emerge after the country was founded.
The party reached the peak of its powers in the 1854-1857 period when it controlled the legislatures of six states and had around 100 legislators in Congress. The odd coalition of anti-slavery or anti-slavery expansion Northerners and pro-slavery or anti-slavery expansion Southerners was only sustained by the party’s neutral position on the issue and its primary position of anti-immigrant, and especially anti-Catholic, fervor, in opposition to the influx of nearly 3 million, largely Catholic, Europeans in the decade from the mid-1840s to the mid-1850s. Very quickly, the party suffered the same fate as the Whigs, as its neutral position on slavery became increasingly untenable. In the 1856 presidential election, the party positioned itself the bridge between the anti and pro slavery divide and ran former president and Whig Millard Fillmore as its presidential candidate. But already much of its support in the North had coalesced behind Republican John Fremont. Fillmore won over 21% of the vote but the party only won one state with eight electoral votes and even the combination of Fremont and Fillmore would have not stopped Democrat James Buchanan from becoming president. By the 1860 election, the Know-Nothings were all but gone, its members having merged into either the Republican or Democratic party.
One would think a short-lived third party from the pre-Civil War days would have little relevance to today, but it is striking how the Know Nothings engaged in many of the same illiberal policies, positions, and proclivities that are central to the Trumpist Republican party today. Rabid xenophobia was the sinew that held the Know Nothing coalition together and it is the same for the Trumpist GOP. From his vicious attacks on immigrants from the moment he came down the escalator in 2016, to the child kidnappings in the first term, to the kidnappings and renditions to foreign gulags today, xenophobia has been the driving force of the Trumpist support. As Lincoln noted in 1855, the Know Nothings position essentially amounted to “all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics”. If you replace Catholics with Muslims, add the LBGT community, and remember that women had few legal rights in the 1850s, that would be a relatively accurate description of today’s Republican party.
The xenophobia of the Know Nothings was mixed with wild conspiracy theories that are similar to the Trumpists today. The Know Nothings thought that this “invasion” of Catholics was a plot to undermine democracy and the country’s core Protestant values and institutions, and an attempt to make the government answerable to the Pope. It was the 1850’s version of today’s Great Replacement theory. A popular book at the time claimed Catholic priests were raping nuns in convents and then strangling their babies. Today, we have the President, Vice President, and others claiming Haitians are eating pets. The whole Trumpist movement relies on a perpetual blizzard of conspiracy theories that began with Obama’s birth certificate. The constant Republican claim that George Soros is funding protests to disrupt American democracy is not only anti-Semitic but mirrors the Know Nothings’ claim about the Pope. And, of course, the conspiracy theory that Trump really won the 2020 election begat the violent 1/6 attempted insurrection.
Much as we would like to ignore it, political violence has been almost the norm in our history and the Know Nothings were no exception. In the 1850s, there were violent nativist riots in a number of cities and much of that violence, particularly in Louisville, St. Louis, and Baltimore, was to prevent Catholics from voting. WIlliam Poole, a Know Nothing party insider and violent gang leader who terrorized Catholics at voting locations, became a martyr when he was shot and killed in a violent confrontation with an Irish boxer. Trumpist violence has targeted not just immigrants, but US citizens of multiple ethnicities, Muslims, Jews, LBGT, legislators, judges, and of course, the peaceful transition of power. The right-wing militia groups the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and Three Percenters all coordinated in the 1/6 insurrection and Ashli Babbitt has now become a martyr for the right wing.
What the Know Nothings couldn’t stop with violence and the polls, they tried to do legislatively, attempting to ban Catholics from not only voting but from holding office. In Massachusetts, the Know Nothings passed a literacy test for voting that was designed to prevent immigrants from getting the franchise but their attempt to change the state constitution that would require a 21-year waiting for an immigrant to be granted suffrage did not pass. In Chicago, Catholics were banned from holding office or even becoming members of the police. Republicans today try to limit minority and Democratic voting with increasingly restrictive voter ID requirements, by closing poll locations, and with extreme partisan gerrymandering. The attacks on DEI are designed to drive Blacks, women, and LBGT out of positions of power and influence and trans people are now no longer allowed to serve in the military.
Like today’s Trumpist Republican party, the Know Nothings tried to justify their xenophobia by claiming they were trying to protect “native” American jobs. The difference is that the Know Nothings at least passed legislation that helped the average working American. Especially in the Northeast states, Know Nothings expanded the rights of labor and women, regulated industry, and invested in infrastructure like railroads and canals. Today’s GOP does the opposite, busting unions, restricting women’s rights, and canceling infrastructure projects. On the other hand, like the GOP, the Know Nothings were fiscally irresponsible, in some cases increasing local taxes by near 50%. Trump’s GOP is signing off on a tariff system that may be one of the biggest tax increases in US history at the same time their tax plan actually raises income taxes on the bottom 40% of earners in order to give more to the top 20%, continuing a pattern of the last half century. Since 1980, every Republican president has increased the deficit, and every Democratic one has reduced it or held it near constant.
Like the members of those anti-immigrant organizations, the GOP response when pressed on issues is to literally lie and say they “know nothing”. When asked about Trump’s racist anti-Muslim screeds, GOP congressman say they haven’t seen the statement. When asked about Trump’s threat to destroy North Korea in a speech to the UN, they say they need “context”. When Trump himself is asked if he’ll uphold the Constitution, he says “I don’t know“. Trump invoked his 5th Amendment privileges over four hundred times in his deposition for his fraud in New York.
Those “don’t knows” are equivalent to the Know Nothings lies about not knowing the details of the secret organizations they belonged to. Where today’s Trumpist GOP actually exceeds the Know Nothing party of the 1850s is that their “don’t knows” also reflect real ignorance and not just deception, and they revel in that ignorance. When confronted with another lunacy from Trump, GOP legislators often say they don’t know and, when reporters offer to show them the details, they say they don’t want to know. Worse, they want to spread that ignorance to the rest of us. The Secretaries of HHS and Defense do not believe in the germ theory of disease. The Surgeon General nominee does not believe in vaccines. The President apparently believes that when you buy a product from someone, you are a loser, but when you sell the exact same product back to the person, you are a winner. The continual bluster that anything they do has never been done before, the lies that tax cuts pay for themselves, and the denial of climate change are just part of the Republican denial of reality.
The current Republican party goes much farther than hypocritical anti-elitism. The defunding of education in general, of the research universities, the NIH, the NSF, NOAA, NASA, VOA, PBS, CFPB, etc.; the attacks on LBGT teachers and bogus plagiarism accusations against school presidents; the anti-DEI demands to change curriculum; the arrests and suspensions of students exercising their First Amendment right to protest under the guise of anti-Semitism; the mass firings of the bureaucratic class as well as the many attacks on other parts of the information economy; the threats to media; the defunding of broadband expansion; these are expressions of real and dangerous anti-intellectualism. They are an attack on knowledge itself. And they are steps taking us a long way down the road to fascism.
Although the Know Nothing party was short-lived, its influence carried on for far longer. Many of those semi-secret anti-immigrant organizations were models for and even morphed into what became the Ku Klux Klan. The party’s extreme anti-Irish animus enforced a solidarity among those immigrants that helped propel the Democratic machine politics that still infect some cities today. And like the Know Nothings, the Trumpist Republican party will have a similar and long-term deleterious influence on the country for decades to come.