Nativism

The flourishing of American nativism, or anti-immigrant sentiment, accompanied the great wave of Irish and German immigrants to American shores in the 1830s and 1840s. For the first time in the history of the nation, many of these newcomers were not middling - or upper-class Protestants but working-class Roman Catholics. Spawned in large part by the anti-Irish sentiments of English arrivals a generation earlier, nativist feeling in the United States took on a particularly anti-Catholic cast. As the church expanded both in number and in its acquisition of property, and as the new arrivals clustered together in crowded urban enclaves, anxious nativists blamed immigrants for the growing problems of the cities. In some quarters, it was even felt that Catholics posed a threat to America’s sovereignty. Some nativists feared a Catholic conspiracy to establish a beachhead in the United States and deliver the country to papal rule.

As early as 1830, nativist publications such as The Protestant began to appear. These were followed by the formation of nativist societies, such as the New York Protestant Association. Encouraged by anti-Catholic speeches of famous ABOLlTlONist minister Lyman Beecher and tracts denouncing Catholicism written by Samuel F. B. Morse, nativism grew and occasionally erupted into violence. In the summer of 1834, for example, a nativist mob stormed and burned the Ursuline Convent in Charlestown, Massachusetts. By 1835 a nativist political party, the Native American Democratic Association, appeared in New York City. Although internal divisions caused the party to collapse, less than a decade later a more powerful nativ-ist party, the American Party, appeared and permanently altered the existing political system. The American Party was more commonly known as the Know-Nothings Party because of party members’ tendency to answer questions about the organization with the phrase, “I know nothing.”

Coupled with an economic depression and increased competition for housing and jobs, the Know-Nothings appealed to artisans and merchants who hoped to stop the flow of immigrants. The party offered an alternative to what the public perceived as the Catholic-controlled Democratic Party. Whigs, too, were seen as being too friendly to immigrants, and the Know-Nothings were particularly successful at converting Whigs to their cause. The primary agenda of the Know-Nothings consisted of diminishing or even eliminating the power of the immigrant voter by extending the naturalization period to 21 years.

The Know-Nothings only fielded a candidate in one presidential election. In 1856 they nominated former president Millard Fillmore to run against James Buchanan, the Democratic nominee, and John C. Fremont, nominee of the newly formed Republican Party. In losing to Buchanan, Fillmore attracted 22 percent of the vote and won eight electoral votes. Ultimately, however, the Know-Nothing agenda proved less compelling than Republican arguments about the spread of slavery. Shortly after 1856, the Know-Nothing Party disbanded. Although the Know-Nothing movement did not achieve its goal, it did provide the final blow to the faltering Whig Party and furthered the nation’s growing sectional division.

Further reading: Ray Allen Billington, The Protestant Crusade, 1800-1860: A Study of the Origins of American Nativism (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1964); John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925 (1955; reprint, New Brunswick, N. J.: Rutgers University Press, 1994); David Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class (New York: Verso, 1999).

—Rebecca Dresser