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- Description is exactly "“Know-Nothing” was the nickname given to the Native American Party, which was comprised of native-born white Protestant Americans who feared America was being overrun by German and Irish Roman Catholic immigrants whose chief allegiance was to the Pope rather than the US government and its republican principles, thus Know-Nothings sought to limit the political influence of immigrants to the US, especially Catholics. When the US Congress assembled on December 3, 1855, 43 representatives were avowed No-Nothings, and former US president Millard Fillmore was the No-Nothing presidential candidate in 1856.
Founded in 1843 as the nativist “Order of the Star-Spangled Banner” and especially active between 1854-1856, members—who were also required to join a lodge and take an oath of secrecy not to reveal information regarding the membership of the order got the nickname “Know-Nothing”; when asked members refused to talk about the party’s real aims, claiming to “know nothing.”
The Know-Nothing Party was progressive in its views on labor rights, the need for increased government spending, increased rights for women, its dedication to temperance, and its opposition to slavery (opposition to the spread of slavery by the Democratic Party in the South was one of the order’s major concerns). Yet due to the decentralized structure of the No-Nothing order, councils were created which differed from state to state, and sometimes even within a state. There were sectional differences as well between Southern No-Nothings and their Northern brethren, the chief difference being that Southern lodges of the party were primarily interested in preserving the Union, thus, viewing the issue of slavery as having the potential to split the Union, took neutral or conciliatory stances regarding slavery. Also, many Southern lodges weren’t opposed to Roman Catholicism thus allowed Catholics to be members of the party.
The extremity of their views, coupled with their extreme secrecy and clandestine nature caused the order to be mistrusted by many however the fact that many Know-Nothings in the North were also abolitionists made them even more despised politically in the South. As the party grew in numbers and importance in the mid-1850s it shed its clandestine character and adopted the name “American Party”.
Prof. Anbinder's book, the first book-length study of the No-Nothing Party, examines the party primarily as it existed in the North yet does have some material on the differences between Northern and Southern Lodges, and chronicles the meteoric rise and fall of this party, arguing that the unparalleled success of the No-Nothings in the mid-1850s came about because many Northerners opted to express their anti-slavery sentiments through this party rather than the Republican Party (which was founded in 1854 specifically to counter the expansion of slavery in the US)."
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