Posted on 06/04/2007 5:26:33 PM PDT by bd476
The Know Nothing Movement--Jealousy of the Foreigner--Know Nothings indifferent to Religion--Democratic Orators--Even at the Altar and in the Pulpit--Almost Incredible--The Infernal Miscreant--A Strange Confession
THE KNOW NOTHING movement of 1854 and 1855 troubled the peace of Catholics, and filled the hearts of foreign-born American citizens with sorrow and indignation. They were made the victims of rampant bigotry and furious political partisanship. There was nothing new in this Know Nothingism. It was as old as the time of the Revolution, being Native Americanism under another name.
Its animating spirit was hostility to the stranger--insane jealousy of the foreigner. It manifested itself in the Convention which formed the Constitution of the United States, though the right to frame that Constitution had been largely gained through the valour of adopted citizens, born in foreign countries, and through the aid and assistance of a foreign nation.
It manifested itself in the year 1796, in laws passed during the Administration of President Adams, a narrow-minded man, much prejudiced against foreigners. The Alien Act, which was one of the most striking results of the illiberal spirit of that day, provided--'That the President of the United States shall be, and is hereby authorised, in any event aforesaid, by his proclamation thereof, or other public act, to direct the conduct to be observed, on the part of the United States, towards aliens .... the manner and degree of the restraint to which they shall be subjected, and in what cases and upon what security their residence shall be permitted, and to provide for the removal of those who, not being permitted to reside in the United States, shall refuse or neglect to depart therefrom.'
Here was a despotism marvellously inconsistent with the object and purpose of the struggle which secured freedom and independence to the revolted colonies of England! Here also was folly bordering upon madness, in discouraging that great external resource, through which alone the enormous territory even then comprehended within the limits of the Union could be populated and civilised--namely, the foreign element--those impelled, through various causes and motives, to cross the ocean, and make their home in America.
Remembering the history of the last fifty years, during which thousands, hundreds of thousands, nay millions of the population of Europe have been spreading themselves over the vast American continent, building up its cities, penetrating and subduing its forests, reclaiming its wastes, constructing its great works, developing its resources, multiplying its population--in a word, making America what she is at this day--one does not know whether to laugh at the absurdity of those who imagined that, without injury to the future of the States, they might bar their ports to emigrants from foreign countries; or doubt the sanity of those who could deliberately proclaim, as the Hartford Convention of 1812 did--'That the stock of population already in these States is amply sufficient to render this nation in due time sufficiently great and powerful, is not a controvertible question.' *
Certainly not controvertible to vanity and folly, which were stimulated by absurd jealousy and causeless apprehension. The generous men who assembled at Hartford were willing to ' offer the rights of hospitality ' to the strangers, under such conditions as those imposed in the Alien Act; but they took care to restrict their munificence to such fair limits as would secure all the honours and emoluments to themselves.
Thus: 'No person who shall hereafter be naturalised shall be eligible as a member of the Senate or House of Representatives of the United States, nor capable of holding any office under the authority of the United States.'
The Alien and Sedition laws, passed in the Administration of Adams, were repealed, fourteen years afterwards, by the Jefferson Administration. These laws were repugnant to the spirit of the American Constitution; and in opposing such laws, and confronting the narrow and ungrateful policy in which they originated, Jefferson and Maddison were simply treading in the broad footprints of the illustrious Washington.
This hostility to the foreigner, intensified by religious prejudice, exhibited itself on various occasions--notably in the disgraceful riots of 1844; but on no occasion was the feeling so universal, or its display so marked, as in the years 1854 and 1855, when the banner of Know Nothingism was made the symbol of political supremacy. Here was every element necessary to a fierce and relentless strife. The Constitution of Know Nothingism was anomalously adopted on the 17th of June, 1854, the anniversary of the Battle of Bunker's Hill.
Strange, that a day> sacred to the freedom of America should be that on which citizens of a free Republic should plot in the dark against the liberties of their fellow men! But so it was. A very few extracts from authentic documents will declare the motives and objects of this organisation:--
ARTICLE II.
A person to become a member of any subordinate council must be twenty-one years of age; he must believe in the existence of a Supreme Being as the Creator and Preserver of the Universe; he must be a native-born citizen; a Protestant, born of Protestant parents, reared under Protestant influence, and not united in marriage with a Roman Catholic, &c. &c. &c.
ARTICLE III.
Sec. 1. The object of this organisation shall be to resist the insidious policy of the Church of Rome, and other foreign influence against the institutions of our country, by placing in all offices in the gift of the people, or by appointment, none but native-born Protestant citizens.
The Know Nothing oath--for the society was not only secret, but bound by oaths--was in accordance with the spirit of the foregoing. It was comprehensive as well as precise, as the following will show:--
You furthermore promise and declare that you will not vote nor give your influence for any man for any office in the gift of the people unless he be an American-born citizen, in favour of Americans ruling America, nor if he be a Roman Catholic.
You solemnly and sincerely swear, that if it may be legally, you will, when elected to any office, remove all foreigners and Roman Catholics from office; and that you will in no case appoint such to office.
Many who joined this organisation had not the excuse, the bad excuse, of fanaticism for their conduct. Lust of power was their ruling passion; to trample their opponents under foot, and secure everything to themselves, their animating motive. If they could have attained their ends through the Catholic body, they would have employed every art of wile and seduction in the hope of securing their co-operation; but as they deemed it more to their advantage to assail and blacken the Catholics, they accordingly did assail and blacken them to the satisfaction of their dupes. For religion--any form of religion--they did not care a cent; probably they regarded it as so much venerable superstition and priestcraft--a very excellent thing for women and persons of weak mind, but not for men; at any rate, men of their enlightenment. Members of no congregation, these defenders of the faith never 'darkened the door' of a church or meeting-house, and save, like the sailor who did not know of what religion he was, but was 'd----d sure he was not a Papist,' entertaining a blind prejudice against Catholicity, they were as ignorant of Christian belief as any savage of Central Africa.
Happily for the cause of truth and common sense, there were in those days men bold enough to lash hypocrisy and humbug. Henry A. Wise, of Virginia, was one of those bold defenders of the truth, and unmaskers of fraud. His speeches, when canvassing his State on the Democratic ticket for the office of Governor, which he won gallantly, are full of the most stinging rebukes of his opponents, whom he defeated in argument as well as in votes. In his remarkable speech at Alexandria, he thus hit off the religious pretensions of many of this class of Know Nothings, who affected a new-born interest in the Bible:--
They not only appeal to the religious element, but they raise a cry about the Pope. These men, many of whom are neither Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, Congregationalists, Lutherans, or what not--who are men of no religion, who have no church, who do not say their prayers, who do not read their Bible, who live God-defying lives every day of their existence, are now seen with faces as long as their dark-lanterns, with the whites of their eyes turned up in holy fear lest the Bible should be shut up by the Pope! Men who were never known before, on the face of God's earth, to show any interest in religion, to take any part with Christ or His Kingdom, who were the devil's own, belonging to the devil's church, are, all of a sudden, deeply interested for the word of God and against the Pope! It would be well for them that they joined a church which does believe in the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Ghost.
As a further specimen of the manner of this famous Democrat, another passage may be quoted from the same speech. He now desires to show the religion of the party, as defined by their Constitution, according to which one of the qualifications of membership is mere belief in the existence of 'a Supreme Being':--
No Christ acknowledged! No Saviour of mankind! No Holy Ghost! No heavenly Dove of Grace! Go, go, you Know Nothings, to the city of Baltimore, and in a certain street there you will see two churches: one is inscribed, 'O Monos Theos'--'to the one God;' on the other is the inscription, 'As for us, we preach Christ crucified --to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness.' The one inscribed, 'O Monos Theos' is the Unitarian church; the other, inscribed, 'We preach Christ crucified' is the Catholic church! Is it--I ask of Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Methodists, and Baptists--is it, I ask, for any orthodox Trinitarian Christian Church to join an association that is inscribed, like the Unitarian church at Baltimore, 'O Monos Theos'--to the one God? Is it for them to join or countenance an association that so lays its religion as to catch men like Theodore Parker and James Freeman Clarke? I put it to all the religious societies--to the Presbyterians, the Episcopalians, the Methodists, and the Baptists--whether they mean to renounce the divinity of Christ and the operation of the Holy Spirit, when they give countenance to this secret society, which is inscribed, 'to the one God?'
A rebuke, milder in tone, and beautiful as a picture, may be taken from a speech delivered at Richmond by Senator R. M. T. Hunter during the Know Nothing campaign:--
But, fellow-citizens, I went a little too far when I said it was proposed to proscribe Catholics for all offices in this country. There are some offices which the sons and daughters of that Church are still considered competent to discharge. I mean the offices of Christian charity, of ministration to the sick. The Sister of Charity may enter yonder pest-house, from whose dread portals the bravest and strongest man quails and shrinks; she may breathe there the breath of the pestilence that walks abroad in that mansion of misery, in order to minister to disease where it is most loathsome, and to relieve suffering where it is most helpless. There, too, the tones of her voice may be heard mingling with the last accents of human despair, to soothe the fainting soul, as she points through the gloom of the dark valley of the shadow of death to the Cross of Christ, which stands transfigured in celestial light, to bridge the way from earth to heaven. And when cholera or yellow fever invades your cities, the Catholic Priest may refuse to take refuge in flight, holding the place of the true Soldier of the Cross to be by the sick man's bed, even though death pervades the air, because he may there tender the ministrations of his holy office to those who need them most.
It is impossible to describe the frenzy that seemed to possess a certain portion of the American people, whose strongest passions and most cherished prejudices were stimulated by appeals from the press and the platform, the pulpit and the street tub. It seized on communities and individuals as a species of uncontrollable insanity. Bitten by the madness of the moment, acquaintance turned savagely on acquaintance, friend upon friend, even relative upon relative. The kindly feelings which it took years to cement were rudely torn asunder and trampled under foot. The Irish Catholic was the chief object of attack. He was guilty of the double crime of being an Irishman and a Catholic; and, to do him justice, he was as ready to proclaim his faith as to boast of his nativity. His enemies were many, his friends few, his defenders less. Poor Pat had indeed a sad time of it.
That the religious feeling added bitterness to the national prejudice was made manifest by the unreasoning fury of those who combined both antipathies in their hostility. Either, however, was quite sufficient to swell the outcry and deepen the hatred against its unoffending objects. Thus the religious prejudice was so bitter, and so violent, that it prevailed against identity of nationality; and the national prejudice was so envenomed that religious sympathy could scarcely restrain its exhibition, and could not prevent its existence.
It is not to be wondered at that the genuine Irish Orangeman sided with the persecutors of his Catholic countrymen; and his conduct on many occasions was a sufficient evidence of his unnatural ferocity. Many Irish Protestants, not Orangemen, gave countenance to the Know Nothings, though, according to the Know Nothing code, none but native-born Protestants were held to be eligible for any office or position in the gift of the people, whether by election or appointment. The shabby conduct of this class of Irishmen was the result either of sectarian hate, or a sense of their own helplessness. They were willing to persecute, or they hoped to propitiate; therefore, they too joined in the crusade against their countrymen in a foreign land.
But there were many, many glorious exceptions to this unworthy conduct. Irish Protestants--men of strong religious opinions, who opposed Catholicity on principle--boldly took their stand by the oppressed, and resented the policy of the Know Nothing party, as if it were directed exclusively against themselves. Sympathising with their Catholic fellow-countrymen, they met the assailants gallantly, and rebuked their insane folly with the courage and the sense of men.
And to Irishmen who thus acted Catholics felt bound by the strongest ties of gratitude and respect. It was a time to test the true merit of the man, and those who stood it triumphantly were deservedly honoured.
A. Lincoln August 24, 1855
I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we begin by declaring that “all men are created 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, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy.
History may not repeat itself...
but it certainly does rhyme.
Today’s “Know Nothings” are Kennedy, McCain, most of their Senate
colleagues, and a fair sector of the GOP.
Because they seem to “Know Nothing” when it comes to exercising
some common sense in dealing with illegal immigrants.
And they hope that the majority of legal residents of the USA will
“know nothing” about how they are engineering a MUCH WORSE version
of Simpson-Mazzoli. And the order-of-magnitudes bigger mess they are
just about to enshrine in legislation.
Go watch or better read “Gangs of New York”. Read about the immigrant-dominated political machines, which ran most cities, including New York.
Speaking as a drunken, papist, mick, has anybody noticed that unlike the emrald isle, Mexico shares a contiguous border with the United States?
Further, unlike the Emrald Isle, there has been past conflict between the US and Mexico which resulted in positioning borders where they are now?
Also speaking as papist, gorilla-like paddy, has anyone noticed that the Mexicans in their “Su Casa es Mi Casa” demonstrations were talking about taking back territory? Not something you saw with turn of the century immigrants.
Call me an arrogant Mick, but Mexico as a country displays nothing but contemptible backwardness driven by elitism and corruption. It is nothing but “no-nothingness” that leads me to reject that? Chinga-te. Do you not think that the poor peasants that flock here will bring that system with them just as we glorious Irish brought a talent for politics?
Ahhh for a wee bit o’ history let us also contemplate the disdain that the elite of England felt for the common Irish which is mirrored by our political elite’s contempt for us commoners. ‘Tis the march of socialism that must be furthered, you angry white Americans are in the way of our unimpeded march’.
With an uninterrupted 70 year record of failure for socialism, who is the real know-nothing?
“We’ll give some land to the Ni——s and the Ch—ks, but not the Irish.” - Blazing Saddles
Sadly, the blood of many a lad of Irish ancestry was given while serving with the New York 69th Infantry Regiment to wipe that stain away.
Remember the signs in doorways and windows of businesses?
No Catholics Nedd Apply
Talk about discirmination!
Absolutely. We should have annexed the northern provinces. They want jobs and opportunity, build them there where they have resources that are tied up by the Mexican ultra-rich.
BTW, my son went to a military school in the US where many of the Mexican elites send their sons for a year. Of interest was that many of these scions of the ultra rich did not know how to complete their own toillette if you catch my drift. They were so rich that they had servants that cleaned their orifices. Astounding!
Mexico is the true example of the two nations that John Edwards is talking about, yet Democratic policies and tactics will bring it about.
Good point, Salvation. Maybe memory is the problem.
Yet Senator Kennedy couldn't possibly forget his own Kennedy clan's battles against discrimination beginning with the harsh discrimination against his Father, Joseph Kennedy for illegally importing liquor. Poor Mr. Kennedy.
Then there was the stressful case of Ted's older brother John who didn't stand a chance of being elected President because he would have been the first Catholic President. Poor JFK.
Thank you for posting the interesting quote from President Lincoln.
You’re welcome. However, he wasn’t the president at the time. :)
The sentiment was expressed in a private letter, which I think in some ways makes it more revealing than a political speech.
Oddly enough, it is very difficult to come up with evidence that the Irish ever demonstrated a talent for politics in Ireland. Quite the opposite.
Aha, even better. And a history lesson to boot. Thank you. :-)
No Irish Need Apply. Fact or Myth?
For an alternative perspective see http://tigger.uic.edu/~rjensen/no-irish.htm
I just noticed the date of the quote. Where did you find the quote?
Anybody have a clue what Mr. Maguire is talking about here?
Every office in the land except President was left open to immigrants. That doesn't sound like "insane jealousy" to me.
http://home.att.net/~howingtons/abe.html
Many Lincoln quotes. The man had a definite gift for the felicitous phrase.
“An Éirinneach nó Sassanach tú?”
The Irish national consciousness has long seen itself as oppressed by its English colonizer and despite differences between the types of oppression in other colonies, Ireland will always maintain a history that includes the story of British oppression. Ireland’s politics, from the Act of Union, through de Valera’s economic war, has centred around the Irish-English relationship that had until 1922 been voiced in Westminster.
http://www.victorianweb.org/history/halloran1.html
Big City Irish Mayors
“Blind Boss” Buckley of San Francisco
Edward R. Butler of St. Louis
James Michael Curley of Boston
Richard J. Daley of Chicago
Richard M. Daley of Chicago
William Flinn of Pittsburgh
Roy Vincent Harris of Augusta, Georgia
Robert E. McKisson of Cleveland
Pete McDonough San Francisco
William Tweed of New York City
Ronald Reagan of California
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