Know-Nothings

Cultural  

1. A party opposed to the holding of public office by immigrants or Roman Catholics. The Know-Nothings, also known as “nativists,” insisted that only true, “native” Americans should serve in the government. The party was quite successful in the 1850s but split over the slavery question. Its official name was the American party. It picked up the “Know-Nothing” tag because its members, maintaining secrecy about the party's activities, customarily answered questions with, “I know nothing.”

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Today, the term know-nothing is usually applied to bigots.

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Know-Nothings

But it’s instructive to look at how the Whigs split into Republicans and Know-Nothings.

From The New Yorker ● Dec. 4, 2018

In a prearranged maneuver, the Republicans nominated John C. Frémont for president while Nathaniel Banks, the nominee of the northern, or “North American,” faction of the Know-Nothings, dropped out of the race in his favor.

From Textbooks ● Jan. 18, 2018

Immigration from predominantly Catholic countries throughout the 19th century sparked anti-Catholic parties such as the Know-Nothings ; roughly 100 years later, echoes of those sentiments sounded in response to John F. Kennedy’s historic presidential run.

From Washington Post ● Oct. 27, 2017

First the Know-Nothings, or American party, whose xenophobia and anti-Catholicism got them elected in droves in New England in the early 1850s.

From The Guardian ● Aug. 20, 2017

The Know-Nothings, therefore, speedily disappeared, and a new party sprang into existence composed of anti-slavery Whigs and anti-slavery Democrats.

From Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 From Lincoln to Garfield, with a Review of the Events Which Led to the Political Revolution of 1860 by James Gillespie Blaine