Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

The Irish in America [Immigration, History & the Know Nothings]
Library Ireland ^ | 1868 | By John Francis Maguire

Posted on 06/04/2007 5:26:33 PM PDT by bd476

click here to read article


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-25 next last


See: Again(s)t Know-Nothingism


1 posted on 06/04/2007 5:26:36 PM PDT by bd476
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: bd476

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.


2 posted on 06/04/2007 5:31:50 PM PDT by Sherman Logan (Offendo ergo sum)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: bd476

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.


3 posted on 06/04/2007 5:43:42 PM PDT by VOA
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: bd476

Go watch or better read “Gangs of New York”. Read about the immigrant-dominated political machines, which ran most cities, including New York.


4 posted on 06/04/2007 7:11:49 PM PDT by rmlew (It's WW4 and the Left wants to negotiate with Islamists who want to kill us , for their mutual ends)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: VOA

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?


5 posted on 06/04/2007 7:16:00 PM PDT by sgtyork (Liberalism worthy of the name emphasizes freedom of the individual, democracy and the rule of law.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: sgtyork
Call me an arrogant Mick, but Mexico as a country displays nothing
but contemptible backwardness driven by elitism and corruption.


I really liked your commentary.
And that line really does hit me.

I guess, even though I'm just an occassionaly sauced, sometimes
agnostic, sometimes non-denominational Christian believer,
of "mutt" heritage (Welsh, Danish, French, German, and G-d only
knows what sneaked in there!)...
I occasionally wish that some of our brave US military personnel of
Mexican extraction wouldn't just quitely form a corps of a thousand and
just take Mexico City, "dispose" of the current Mexican grandees,
and just declare it the 51st state.

And then I realize that's just a dream...fraught with all sorts
of possible "unintended consequences".
6 posted on 06/04/2007 7:27:31 PM PDT by VOA
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: bd476

“We’ll give some land to the Ni——s and the Ch—ks, but not the Irish.” - Blazing Saddles


7 posted on 06/04/2007 7:29:16 PM PDT by dfwgator (The University of Florida - Still Championship U)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: bd476
The author of that piece left out one wee bit of detail. The history of the betrayal of the 'San Patrico Battalion is well known.

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.

8 posted on 06/04/2007 7:30:33 PM PDT by investigateworld ( Abortion stops a beating heart.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: bd476

Remember the signs in doorways and windows of businesses?

No Catholics Nedd Apply

Talk about discirmination!


9 posted on 06/04/2007 7:32:36 PM PDT by Salvation (†With God all things are possible.†)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: VOA

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.


10 posted on 06/04/2007 7:43:56 PM PDT by sgtyork (Liberalism worthy of the name emphasizes freedom of the individual, democracy and the rule of law.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Salvation
Salvation wrote: "Remember the signs in doorways and windows of businesses?
No Catholics Need Apply. Talk about discrimination!"


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.


11 posted on 06/04/2007 8:19:49 PM PDT by bd476
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: Sherman Logan
Thank you for posting the interesting quote from President Lincoln.

12 posted on 06/04/2007 8:28:54 PM PDT by bd476
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: bd476

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.


13 posted on 06/04/2007 8:31:41 PM PDT by Sherman Logan (Offendo ergo sum)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: sgtyork
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?

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.

14 posted on 06/04/2007 8:33:27 PM PDT by Sherman Logan (Offendo ergo sum)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: Sherman Logan
Aha, even better. And a history lesson to boot. Thank you. :-)

15 posted on 06/04/2007 8:33:59 PM PDT by bd476
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: Salvation

No Irish Need Apply. Fact or Myth?

For an alternative perspective see http://tigger.uic.edu/~rjensen/no-irish.htm


16 posted on 06/04/2007 8:36:52 PM PDT by Sherman Logan (Offendo ergo sum)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: Sherman Logan
I just noticed the date of the quote. Where did you find the quote?

17 posted on 06/04/2007 8:37:03 PM PDT by bd476
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: bd476
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

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.

18 posted on 06/04/2007 8:38:55 PM PDT by Sherman Logan (Offendo ergo sum)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: bd476

http://home.att.net/~howingtons/abe.html

Many Lincoln quotes. The man had a definite gift for the felicitous phrase.


19 posted on 06/04/2007 8:41:59 PM PDT by Sherman Logan (Offendo ergo sum)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: Sherman Logan

“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


20 posted on 06/04/2007 8:45:24 PM PDT by sgtyork (Liberalism worthy of the name emphasizes freedom of the individual, democracy and the rule of law.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-25 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson