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

The resulting backlash took the form of a new political party, officially the American Party, better known by its nickname, the Know-Nothings.

From Washington Post ● Jul. 15, 2019

For most of 1854 and 1855, Republicans and Know-Nothings vied to replace the Whigs as the principal opponents of northern Democrats.

From Textbooks ● Jan. 18, 2018

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 got their name because, when asked about their clandestine activities, they often said, “I know nothing.”

From The New Yorker ● Dec. 28, 2015

A secret organization called Americans, or Know-Nothings, swept the Commonwealth like a wave, electing all the State officers, and, with scarcely an exception, the entire Legislature.

From Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 by George Frisbie Hoar

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