The New International Encyclopædia/Know-Nothings
KNOW-NOTHINGS. In American history,
a secret political party or society, which after
1852 suddenly gained the ascendency in several
States, and then as rapidly declined. Its work
was closely allied with the movement of the
‘American’ and ‘Nativist’ parties, and it aimed,
through very stringent naturalization laws, to
make politically powerless the large number of
immigrants then settling in the United States,
and through other means to check the growth of
foreign influences and ideas. A decade earlier
the American Party had shown strength in New
York City, and after the Democratic victory of

1843, which resulted in many local offices being
given to the foreign-born, the native Americans
carried the city election of April, 1844. In the
fall of the same year both New York and
Philadelphia gave Nativist majorities, but three years
later the party had disappeared in the former
city. The Twenty-ninth Congress had six Nativist
members, while the Thirtieth had only one. The
Irish famine and the revolutionaiy movements
in Europe during 1848 and 1849, with the
reaction thereafter, occasioned a greatly increased
immigration, and caused a reappearance of the
Nativist movement in the form of a secret
society variously known as ‘The Sons of '76,’ or
‘The Supreme Order of the Star Spangled Banner,’
which was primarily opposed to immigration
and the spread of Catholicism in America, and
the members of which, upon being questioned
about their order, uniformly replied ‘I don't
know.’ The party which came to be organized,
and which from the above circumstance was
popularly called the ‘Know-Nothing Party,’
conducted its work in profound secrecy, holding
secret conventions, and often so casting its vote
as to make it an indeterminate quantity in many
elections. In the State elections of 1854, the
party carried Massachusetts and Delaware. In
New York it polled more than 120,000 votes, and
it also showed strength in the Middle States.
In 1855 it was successful in four New England
States, and in New York, Kentucky, and California.
Its strength was due in no small measure
to the dissolution of the Whig Party. Efforts
were made, by means of the questions raised by
this movement, to supersede the anti-slavery
agitation, which was then rapidly increasing, but
in 1850 the latter obscured the former, and many
Know-Nothings joined with the Republicans in
supporting Frémont for the Presidency. The
party, however, held a ‘secret grand council’ on
February 19, 1856, at which a platform was
adopted including a proposition for a twenty-one
years' residence qualification for naturalization.
On February 22d an open convention was held.
which some 227 delegates attended, and by this
convention Millard Fillmore was nominated for
the Presidency, and A. J. Donelson of Tennessee
for the Vice-Presidency, these nominations being
later adopted by the remnant of the Whigs. The
delegates from the States of the North refused
to be bound by the vote of this convention, and
Frémont became the candidate for the Presidency
of the so-called North Americans, as well as of
the Republicans. In the early State elections, in
the fall of 1856, the party succeeded in electing
Governors of Rhode Island and New Hampshire,
but in the Presidential election there was a very
great decrease in the party's vote, many of its
members apparently voting the Republican ticket.
The party secured only eight electoral votes, those
of Maryland. In 1857 it carried Rhode Island
and Maryland, but by 1860 had entirely
disappeared.