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.

Example Sentences

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

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

From The New Yorker • Dec. 4, 2018

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

When the fight began there were four parties in the field: the Democrats, the Whigs, the Free-Soilers, and the Know-Nothings.

From Abraham Lincoln and the Union; a chronicle of the embattled North by Stephenson, Nathaniel W. (Nathaniel Wright)