Bigotry, anti-immigration, nativist sentiment (?), slavery, anti-Catholics, anti-Jews, anti-Negroes, burning churches, murders of activists, discrimination of non-whites … yet the U.S. is a succes in the experiment of multi-culturalism. Today many people suffer from discrimination in poverty, ill health and a short lifespan. The bigot Donald Trump is yet another figure from a long line of politicians who exploits the weakness in humankind. h/t BooMan
○ Why Wasps are an endangered species in the US | The Independent |
Anti-Catholicism in 19th Century America
{see also the argument of King Henry VIII, the Pope – the Church of England and Anglicanism}
In 1849, an oath-bound secret society, the Order of the Star Spangled Banner, was created by Charles B. Allen in New York City. Fear of Catholic immigration led to a dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party, whose leadership in many cities included Catholics of Irish descent.
In 1854 the Know-Nothings captured the legislature and governorship of Massachusetts, and by 1855 all of New England except Maine and Vermont was under its control. Hoping to win the presidency in 1856 on a Union-saving platform, the party nominated the former president Millard Fillmore, but many of its antislavery members deserted to join the Republican Party. Though Fillmore captured over 21 percent of the vote, the party gradually declined after the election.
During the lead-up to the Civil War, sectionalism became a stronger force than nativism, though the latter never disappeared entirely. In the postwar period there was a revival of nativist sentiments, though during Reconstruction the original Ku Klux Klan was more concerned with blacks and white Republicans than Catholics or Jews. The American Protective Association (APA) was founded in Clinton, Iowa, in the 1880s. The organization quickly expanded, claiming some half a million members in 1893, after William J. Traynor became the leader of the order. Members had to take an oath pledging they would never vote for any Catholic, and the group’s propaganda included a forged encyclical by Pope LEO XIII that allegedly absolved all Catholics from loyalty to their countries. Meant to prove the existence of a popish plot, which had long been a fear of the nativists, this forgery led to riots in 1894. Despite this early success and growth, the APA soon lost influence, and it had passed out of existence by 1911.
Nativism took on a racial perspective during the twentieth century, so that nativist factions often tended to classify those from various Catholic nations, such as Italians and Poles, as inferior. In 1915, William J. Simmons founded a new Ku Klux Klan near Atlanta, Georgia. Like the original Klan, Simmons’s group directed their ire against Negroes, but they soon expanded their attacks to include Catholics and Jews. The Klan grew rapidly in the 1920s, and by 1923 it had reached a membership of some three million. Its influence was so strong that delegates at the 1924 Democratic Convention were afraid to condemn it.
This was a period of extreme nationalism that saw the passage of various immigration restriction acts. The Immigration Restriction Act of 1921 set up a quota of only 3 percent of the total number of each immigrant group living in the nation, based on the 1910 census. The 1924 Immigration Act, which replaced the temporary 1921 law, reduced quotes still further, to 2 percent of the number of each group in the nation in 1890, and quotas were now to be based on national origin.
At this point, I Googled the phrase – Donald Trump and the Resurgence of the Know Nothings.
The Know Nothing Party: A Cautionary Tale | Harvard Politics – Oct. 2015 |
The current outpouring of anti-immigrant and pro-American rhetoric is not new. The basis of the surge in nativist thought arose in the mid-nineteenth century, when the “Know Nothing” Party emerged, ushering in a wave of nativism and Anglo-Saxon superiority that continues to this day. What is occurring right now is not an anomaly, but the continuation of a Know Nothing legacy. It is our responsibility to recognize the past, lest we repeat the mistakes we have tried to forget.
The Know Nothing Party: A Brief History
« click for more info
Rioters burn St. Augustine's Catholic Church in Philadelphia.The year was 1849. The country had just emerged from an aggressive expansionary war with Mexico, and patriotic spirit ran high: America had become a force to be reckoned with in international politics. But a fear had crept over the country that Irish-Catholic immigrants would take over American jobs and government positions while keeping a papal allegiance. Just a few years earlier, Anti-Catholic groups in Philadelphia had burned down several churches in one of the worst race riots in American history.
It was in this environment that the Order of the Star Spangled Banner was born. Its mission was political: members would “vote for no one except native-born Protestants for public office,” and prefer nativist candidates. Within a year, the order quickly grew from a small brotherhood to an organization of over 50,000. Its secret nature led members to say they “knew nothing” about the Order when asked. Colloquially, the group became known as the Know Nothings.
By 1855, the group, now referred to as the American Party, had taken control of the Massachusetts legislature, and passed numerous bills to curb the influence of Irish immigrants. This, combined with authorized spying on nunneries, and required reading of the King James Bible in schools, made for an oppressive environment for those who were not perceived as American.
