Know-Nothings in the News!

John Kerry once again lashes out at the hoi polloi: “It’s absurd. We’ve lost our minds. We’re in a period of know-nothingism in the country, where truth and science and facts don’t weigh in. It’s all short-order, lowest-common-denominator, cheap-seat politics.”

Victor Davis Hanson, at The Corner.

"Fillmore . . . quizzically noted that he was already the national American candidate"

In a series of posts several years ago I argued that Millard Fillmore's run for the presidency in 1856 under the American Party (Know Nothing) banner had nothing to do with nativism or anti-Catholicism. Millard was using the Know Nothings as a vehicle to try to forge a pro-Union party - think of it as a precursor to John Bell's run in 1860 as the candidate of the makeshift Constitutional Union Party.

In Parties, Slavery, and the Union in Antebellum Georgia, Anthony Gene Carey makes clear that Georgian supporters of Fillmore, at least, backed his candidacy because they understood Unionism to lie at its core:

Georgian Americans . . . offered [Millard] their nomination at a July [1856] state convention. Fillmore, in graciously accepting the endorsement, quizzically noted that he was already the national American candidate, but his Georgia backers adamantly refused to regard him as such. Fillmore was only "nominally the candidate of a party"; he was really "the candidate of the people." The Fillmore movement was "an insurrection of the honest masses against the despotism of party and party leaders." The "proud and independent" Georgian Americans rejoiced that they and their candidate were untrammeled by platforms "framed in Northern latitudes." Determined to mold Fillmore in their own image, [Georgian] Americans created a proslavery, prosouthern Unionist who deplored partisanship but nonetheless loathed the national Democracy.

About the illustration, entitled The Great Presidential Race of 1856:

An animated comic scene ridiculing the Democratic and American party candidates. In the foreground is a somewhat rickety wooden "Democratic Platform," into which presidential candidate James Buchanan has just run, knocking his mount (running mate John C. Breckinridge, in the form of a buck) unconscious. Buchanan (center, dressed as a jockey) holds his right shin and curses a ragged black youth who stands laughing on the platform, "You infernal Black Scoundrel, if it had not been for you and that cursed Slavery Plank that Scared and upset my Buck, I should have won this race certain." The black youth jeers, "Ya! Ya! Ya! Why Massa Buck. Dis is de Democratic Platform, I tink I misunderstand you to Say dat you like dis Plank [. . .] in fac dat you was de Platform [. . . .]" One of the planks in the platform is labeled "Slavery," and another "Cuba," referring to the apparent proslavery and annexationist interests of the Democrats. On the far right a small boy is hoisted onto the back of a ragged, weed-chewing man with a beard. The urchin holds a flag reading, "We Po'ked em in 44, We Peirce'd em in 52 and We'll "Buck em" in 56." The bearded man looks at the child irritably and scowls, "Hello there!! are you a Fre'mounter." At left, American party candidate Millard Fillmore, riding a goose with the head of running mate Andrew Jackson Donelson and holding a "Know Nothing" lantern, cries, "I'm "All right on the Goose," and yet I dont seem to make much head way, Gentlemen you may all laugh, but if I'm not the next President the Union Will Be Disolved, The South Wont Stand It." In the background a crowd watches the race. Two men converse, saying, "Little too much Squatter Sovereignty about that Goose Fillmore?" and "A decided Curvature of the Spine, no Back Bone Sir, "All Dough" Sir, ha! ha! ha!" The majority of the spectators, however, cheer on Republican candidate John C. Fremont whose horse takes the lead at right. On an observation or judging deck nearby stands Brother Jonathan, holding what appears to be a timer's watch. The apt comic mise-en-scene and development of the minor characters here are characteristic of John L. Magee's work.

The Origin of the Term "Know-Nothing"

Researching the origins of the term “Know Nothing” turns up the same tired explanation virtually every time. Here, for example, is Wikipedia:

The origin of the "Know Nothing" term was in the semi-secret organization of the party. When a member was asked about its activities, he or she was supposed to reply, "I know nothing."

***

Fear of Catholic immigration led to a dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party whose leadership in many areas included Irish American Catholics. Activists formed secret groups, coordinating their votes and throwing their weight behind candidates sympathetic to their cause. When asked about these secret organizations, members were to reply "I know nothing," which led to their popularly being called Know Nothings.

Wikipedia, in turn, cites to the Encyclopedia Britannica online, which reports that “[m]embers, when asked about their nativist organizations, were supposed to reply that they knew nothing, hence the name.”

Unfortunately, this universally accepted story is probably wrong.

In his meticulous Nativism and Slavery: The Northern Know Nothings and the Politics of the 1850s, Tyler Anbinder examined the evidence more closely and debunked the myth:

The precise origin of this term [“Know Nothings”] is a mystery, but it apparently made its public debut in November 1853. At that time, the New York Tribune reported that the Whig candidate for New York district attorney had lost “through the instrumentality of a mongrel ticket termed the 'Know-Nothing.' . . . This ticket,” continued the Tribune, “is the work of the managers of a secret organization growing out of the Order of United Americans, but ostensibly disconnected therefrom.” A few days later the Tribune again mentioned “the Know-Nothing organization,” calling it “but a new dodge of protean nativism.”

Andbinder points out that

[n]either reference mentions the now universal belief that the term “Know Nothing” derived from members' practice of feigning ignorance when queried about the organization. Nor does it appear that Tribune editor Horace Greeley coined the term. The Tribune's use of the phrase suggests that rather than having concocted the term itself, the newspaper was simply reporting what had been relayed by some outside source.

What, then, was the origin of the term? Anbinder suggests several possibilities:

Perhaps the ticket mentioned by the Tribune had been nicknamed the “Know-Nothing” ticket by its organizers. Local electoral tickets often assumed strange labels . . . [or] adopted names used as slurs by their enemies. Perhaps poll watchers coined the term during the November 1853 New York City election, because they could not discover the source of the OSSB [Order of the Star Spangled Banner] ballots. However the appellation originated, the influence of the Tribune, the most widely read newspaper in the nation, made it stick. From this point onward, the OSSB was referred to as the “Know-Nothings,” and the members initially did little to discourage the term's use.

About the illustration:

Sheet music cover for a schottisch (a dance similar to the polka), composed by Francis H. Brown and dedicated to "Miss Mary Leeds of New York." The illustration features the standing figure of "Young America," a young man in coat, waistcoat, and plaid trousers, holding an American flag. Virtually the same idealized, youthful male figure appears as "Citizen Know Nothing" and "Uncle Sam" in other nativist contexts. (See for instance "Uncle Sam's Youngest Son" and "Sam's Coming," nos. 1854-4 and 1855-6.) Behind him on the left a train moves along a track out of a tunnel, and on the right are two ships. These allude to the progressive (or "Young America") Democrats' emphasis on internal improvements, commerce, and trade.

Was Millard Tilting at Windmills in 1856?

Some time ago, I wrote a series of posts about Millard Fillmore's run for the presidency on the American Party (Know Nothing) ticket in 1856. It occurred to me that I should round off that discussion by addressing one additional issue. Millard wound up receiving only 21% of the vote and a grand total of eight -- count 'em, eight -- electoral votes. All of which raises the question, What was he thinking? Was the guy delusional, living in some sort of fantasy world imagining that he could win?

The answer to these questions is "no." After the Republicans coopted the northern wing of the American Party, it became clear that Millard's task was to deny either of the other candidates a majority of the electoral college votes. As David M. Potter observed, "If Fillmore could carry a few southern states, he might throw the election into the House of Representatives, where there would be a good chance of his being chosen."

In fact, Fillmore came extremely close to achieving that goal. James Buchanan carried 174 electoral votes: 60 more than John C. Fremont's 114, but only 25 more than the absolute majority of 149 (out of 296 total) required to avoid throwing the election into the House.

Millard almost got those 25 additional votes. Professor Potter again: "[A]lthough Fillmore appeared to be overwhelmingly beaten, a percentage change of less than 3 percent of the popular vote (or of 8,016 votes) in Kentucky, Tennessee and Louisiana would have given Fillmore enough electoral votes to throw the contest into the House of Representatives."

Here are the figures for the three key states:

ST (EV) Total Buchanan Fillmore Difference

KY (12) 142,058 74,642 52.5% 67,416 47.5% 7,226

LA (6) 42,873 22,164 51.7% 20,709 48.3% 1,455

TN (12) 133,582 69,704 52.2% 63,878 47.8% 5,826

If Millard had been able to add the thirty electoral votes of these three states to his column, Buchanan would have wound up with 144 -- five fewer than the 149 he needed. (The above figures indicate that a shift of 7,256 votes would have been sufficient to change the results, rather than Professor Potter's 8,016 votes. I'm not sure where the discrepancy lies.)

"Our antipathy to the Pope and to Paddy is a pretty deep-seated feeling"

The Weed-Seward Whigs had been a highly competitive organization in New York for years. They consistently outmaneuvered their intra-party rivals, the Silver Greys, and they had regularly exploited divisions between Hards and Softs to best the Democrats. The new Republican party, augmented by Barnburner Democrats, some Softs and some KNs who feared the Slave Power more than the Pope, seemed ready to march to victory in 1855. The remaining Softs and the Hards continued to be divided. As for the Know Nothings – well, you know as well as I that the Republicans were destined to relegate them to the ash bin of history.

History, however, apparently forgot to vote in the 1855 elections in New York, and the Americans did not get the message that they were supposed to die. In the lead race for Secretary of State, for example, the Americans outpolled the Republicans by almost 12,000 votes:

Headley (American) 148,557 34.1%
King (Republican) 136,698 31.4%
Hatch (Soft) 91,336 21.0%
Ward (Hard) 59,353 13.6%

On the bright side for the Republicans, it was a good showing for a new party, formally organized only six weeks before the election. One potential rival, the old Whig party, had disappeared. The three parties that had included anti-slavery statements in their platforms (all but the Hards) had garnered 86% of the vote.

On the other hand, the negatives were large. The results suggested that, even after almost two years of agitation over the Nebraska bill and troubles in Kansas, antislavery, by itself, was simply not sufficiently attractive to marshal even a plurality of the vote. More voters were attracted by the Americans’ combination of anti-Catholicism, temperance and mild anti-slavery. The total vote in 1855 had decreased by 20,000 from 1854, and yet the American vote increased by 26,000. As diarist George Templeton Strong observed, New Yorkers’ “antipathy to the Pope and to Paddy is a pretty deep-seated feeling.”

In addition, the combined votes of the two Democratic factions were greater than the Republican total. If they could reconcile for the national election in 1856, they might well sweep to victory in the state.

In sum, the Republicans were competitive in New York in 1855, but in the end they were also-rans. A betting man, surveying the field in December 1855, would not have placed his chips on the Republicans as the party to challenge and defeat the Democrats in the state in 1856.

The Choctaws

A couple of posts ago, I referred to a number of the names borne by political factions in the Byzantine world of antebellum New York politics -- Barnburners and Hunkers, Softs, Hards and Silver Greys.

Well, here's one more: the Choctaws. No they were not Indians. The Choctaws were a dissident group of pro-Seward Know Nothings. In 1854, when the KN-Silver Greys nominated Daniel Ullmann for governor, the Choctaws bolted the KNs and endorsed the Dry Weed Whig, Myron H. Clark.

In early 1855, Thurlow Weed curried favor with the Choctaws as part of his strategy to obtain Seward's reelection to the Senate. Weed selected as speaker of the New York assembly DeWitt Clinton Littlejohn, a KN allied with the Choctaws.

The KNs Vote for Pope Pius

In New York, “[t]he disintegration of anything like party regularity in the chaotic four-party election of 1854 made it impossible to forecast the party breakdown in the new legislature” that assembled at the beginning of 1855. KNs constituted roughly one-third of each house. “By cooperating with the Hards, their most likely allies,” the KN could have controlled both houses.

William Seward had a long history of courting immigrants and Catholics. As such, there was every reason to assume that he was anathema to the KN legislators. Remarkably, Thurlow Weed nonetheless engineered the reelection of Seward to the United States Senate. He used a variety of methods. Using the compliant new governor, Myron Clark, Weed delayed all government appointments until after the vote, to the point that a Silver Grey complained that “[t]he State creeps all over like an old cheese, & swarms of maggots are out hopping & skipping about all the avenues to the Legislature.”

Substantively, Weed and the KNs reached an accommodation. If the KNs voted for Seward, Weed would not “hinder passage of a temperance law and of an anti-Catholic church property law designed to prevent clerical control of ecclesiastical property. Both laws were key pieces of legislation to the KNs, and the temperance law would please the governor as well.

The upshot was that a majority of the American party legislators in both houses voted for Seward, and the legislators got their temperance and church property laws.

The New York Evening Post acerbically commented on the surprising result, “one need not be surprised if the vote of the Know-Nothings is cast for Pope Pius at the next election.”

Richard Vaux, "An ass of the first water"

You've never heard of Richard Vaux? He was an early victim of the Know Nothings. The Democrats nominated for mayor of Philadelphia in 1854. He had a close association with Catholics and immigrants and won the Democratic primary in large part because a large portion of the Catholic vote was delivered to him. Running against Whig Robert T. Conrad, the Democrats were confident of a resounding victory.

They were wrong. In the general election, held in June 1854, Vaux was swamped; Conrad, it turned out, was also a Know Nothing, and won with a majority of more than 8,000 votes.

Even some Democrats were disgusted with Vaux's heavy reliance on Catholics. William Gienapp relates that "One indignant Democrat, who claimed that Vaux had been nominated by illegal votes, dismissed the Democratic mayoral candidate as 'really an ass of the first water.'"

I'm not sure what that means, but you get the idea.

Millard Fillmore, Know Nothing: Part XI

Last winter, I posted a number of entries about Millard Fillmore's decision to run for president as the candidate of the American (Know Nothing) party in 1856. I argued, among other things, that Fillmore was not a nativist or anti-Catholic; that he turned to the American party, for want of any other vehicle, to convert it into a non-sectional, pro-Union party; and that, in winning the nomination and running on the American ticket, he used an absolute minimum of nativist, anti-immigrant rhetoric -- so little, that he alienated many of the hard-core members who had swelled the party's ranks in 1854 and 1855.

I am pleased to see that so learned a scholar as William Gienapp appears to agree. Here are are a few of Professor's Gienapp's observations about Fillmore's involvement with the Know Nothings:

Fillmore had begun pursuing the [Know Nothing] nomination as early as 1854. He appealed principally to the Silver Grey element in the order [Silver Greys were conservative New York Whigs, opposed to the Seward-Weed wing of the party] and to southerners who desired the preservation of a national Union party. Although the former president endorsed limited nativist reforms, he had little interest in this aspect of the American movement (indeed, while visiting Rome in January 1856, he had an audience with the Pope). Instead, from the first he envisioned the American party as a conservative, pro-Union replacement for the Whig organization.

* * *

Also important [to the Know Nothings' decline] was the muddling of the party's appeal with Fillmore at the head of its ticket. The Know Nothings had risen to power by crusading against old party hacks, calling for political reform, and shrewdly exploiting both anti-Catholic and anti-Nebraska sentiment so pervasive in the North. Fillmore had no interest in any of these issues. To him and the clique of Silver Grey Whigs around him, the major issue of the contest, indeed the great issue since 1850, was the preservation of the Union. In a series of short campaign speeches that he delivered following his return from Europe, Fillmore over and over again stressed the importance of the Union issue while giving only lip service to the nativist sentiments that motivated the party's rank-and-file. "Do you notice that K N-ism already has utterly sunk all discussion of its leading principles?" one Republican asked near the end of the campaign. From a quite different perspective, a New York Know Nothing nonetheless made a similar observation when he complained that the party's speakers "have said too little about the great American principles."

Millard Fillmore, Know Nothing: Part X

In assessing Millard Fillmore’s 1855-56 candidacy, several conclusions stand out.

First, he sought and accepted the nomination of the National Americans for the best of reasons – reasons having nothing to do with the original nativist agenda of KNs. Both Michael Holt and Tyler Anbinder are unequivocal on the point: Fillmore was convinced that the safety of the Union required locating a non-sectional, pro-Union party; the alternative was increasing sectional animosity, leading to disunion and civil war. The Know Nothings were simply the vehicle that Fillmore believed he had to use to accomplish that goal.

It is entirely reasonable to question or criticize Fillmore’s implicit decision to value the concept of Union more highly than moral qualms over slavery. In this respect, it might be said, he was simply another doughface and no better than the victor in that election, James Buchanan. On the hand, it is fair to observe that in 1855-56 most members of the coalescing Republican party were not acting out of concern for black slaves either. Many hated the Slave Power because of its perceived domination of the North; many others despised slavery because it degraded free, white labor and were seeking to prevent the spread of slavery to preserve the territories for free white men. Virtually no one was proposing to abolish slavery in the southern states.

Second, Fillmore’s few statements in support of the original, nativist principles of the Americans were remarkably bland. The name “Know Nothings” typically conjures up lurid images of rabble-rousing demagogues violently denouncing whiskey-soaked Irishmen and beer-swilling Germans and urging their brutish followers to ransack churches and hunt down imaginary Popish plotters in the streets. I have quoted at length the statements that Fillmore made precisely so that you can see for yourself that his campaign bore no resemblance to such stereotypes. It is fair to say that Fillmore said the bare minimum – or less than the minimum – necessary to justify his credentials as the American nominee. When he did speak, he eschewed ethnic or religious slurs and focused largely on the need to educate immigrants in the ways of democracy.

Would I have preferred Fillmore to have chosen a vehicle other than the Know Nothings for his unsuccessful run? Sure. But even (or especially) from this distance, it is hard to see what other choice Fillmore, and other men of his persuasion, had in the mid-1850s. History is not foreordained. If events such as the Sack of Lawrence and the caning of Sumner had not driven more and more northerners – including former Know Nothings – into the arms of the Republicans during the course of 1856, perhaps Fillmore and his allies might have succeeded in their quest to transform the Americans into a credible, cross-sectional, pro-Union party, jettisoning most of the Americans’ nativist baggage in the process. Millard Fillmore could not know that events would betray him; at least he tried.

Millard Fillmore, Know Nothing: Part IX

The focus of Fillmore’s campaign was so clearly on Unionism – and not on nativism – that he never did dispel the concerns of many about his lack of commitment to Americanism. Ironically, a number of KNs expressed the belief that he was not even the strongest pro-native candidate in the field: despite (false) rumors that Republican candidate John C. Fremont was a Catholic, and although the Republicans had reneged on their commitment to nominate a KN as their vice presidential candidate, some KNs opined that Fremont was more likely than Fillmore to champion key portions of the American agenda. As Tyler Anbinder has explained:

North Americans [KNs from the north who had bolted the national party over slavery] also believed that once the slavery issue was settled, Fremont would be more responsive than Fillmore to the Order’s nativist agenda. Nativist newspapers throughout the North reported that Fremont had assured Know Nothing leaders of his sympathy with their movement. In a comparison they portrayed Fillmore as a “parlor Know Nothing” who had never attended a lodge meeting and who had accepted membership in the Order merely to gain the American party’s nomination. As a result, said North Americans, nativists would find Fillmore “less disposed to carry out the great principles of the American party than Col. Fremont will be.” . . . Veteran Massachusetts nativist Jonathan Peirce stated privately that if Fremont “is elected no aliens or Roman Catholics will be retained in office.” Even the Catholic Bishop of Buffalo believed that the Republicans had replaced the Americans as the most anti-Catholic political party.

Millard Fillmore, Know Nothing: Part VIII

Millard Fillmore arrived back in New York harbor at the end of June 1856. His backers arranged for a series of dinners and events to celebrate his return as he traveled from New York City to his home in Buffalo, at which he could deliver impromptu remarks without violating the conventions of the period.

The speeches that Fillmore delivered along the way centered on the preservation of the Union, not on immigrants or Catholics. In the words of Tyler Anbinder, they “revealed how sharply the goals of the American party differed from those espoused during” 1854 and early 1855:

Instead of criticizing the political power of Catholics and immigrants, Fillmore attacked those who disturbed the harmony of the Union. He condemned “the present agitation” of the slavery issue, “which distracts the country and threatens us with civil war,” and insisted that these conditions had been “recklessly and wantonly produced” by the adoption of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Although the Democrats had initiated the crisis, Fillmore blamed the Republicans for the persistence of the sectional hostility . . .. Fillmore promised that the American party would restore sectional harmony by favoring neither North nor South, insisting that “I know only my country, my whole country, and nothing but my country.”

This is not to say that Fillmore ignored nativism entirely. Given the persistent doubts about his commitment to the cause, he could not afford to do so. Solomon Haven warned Fillmore that he needed to make statements that were “strong[ly] American, and a little Protestant.” To satisfy this requirement, Fillmore typically made brief endorsements of “Americanism.” His most detailed statement on the subject appears to have taken place during remarks in Newburgh, New York, in which he asserted that

Americans should govern America. I regret to say that men who come fresh from the monarchies of the old world, are prepared neither by education, habits of thought, or knowledge of our institutions, to govern America. The failure of every attempt to establish free government in Europe, is demonstrative of this fact; and if we value the blessings which Providence has so bounteously showered upon us, it becomes every American to stand by the Constitution and the laws of his country, and to resolve that, independent of all foreign influence, Americans will and shall rule America.

Again, at least to this sympathetic auditor, this is pretty tame stuff. KNs had advocated increasing the naturalization period from five to twenty-one years or more. Fillmore’s speech pointedly failed to endorse even this requirement. So far as one can tell, the existing five-year period might be sufficient to inculcate the values of democracy in “men who come fresh from the monarchies of the old world.” Certainly, neither the Constitution nor the existing laws required more. Likewise, there was no mention of Catholicism or Popish plots. A skeptic might even point out that Ireland was omitted entirely, since it was not really a “monarchy” (unless England was).

Millard Fillmore, Know Nothing: Part VII

Millard Fillmore sailed for Europe in May 1855, having made a single statement designed to ingratiate himself with Know Nothings, and did not return to the United States until June 1856.

In his absence, a Know Nothing convention nominated him for the presidency at the end of February 1856. From the very outset, many Know Nothings expressed doubts about Fillmore’s commitment to the American cause. Tyler Anbinder cites complaints by the Albany State Register (February 29, 1856), the Jamestown [NY] Journal (March 7, 1856), and the Steubenville True American (March 5, 1856). Also in early March 1856, Thomas Ford, an Ohio Know Nothing leader, urged Ohio KNs to renounce Fillmore’s nomination.

Such condemnations generated rumors that Fillmore would decline the nomination. Solomon Haven and others therefore urged Fillmore to accept as soon as possible. Fillmore did so by letter from Paris dated May 21, 1856, addressed to Alexander H.H. Stuart and other members of the National Americans’ executive committee.

To placate concerns about his bona fides, Fillmore’s letter included endorsements of the party and its platform. But what is most remarkable about the letter is how frank Fillmore was in describing his priorities and reasons for doing so. The KNs, Fillmore asserted, were the only political organization that had the power to silence the “violent and disastrous agitation” between the sections -- sectional divisions could lead to disunion. It was for this reason that Fillmore, and “every earnest friend of the integrity of the Union,” was compelled to embrace the National Americans:

As the proceedings of the Convention have marked a new era in the history of the country, by bringing a new political organization into the approaching presidential canvass, I take occasion to reaffirm my full confidence in the patriotic purpose of that organization, which I regard as springing out of the public necessity forced upon the country to a large extent by unfortunate sectional divisions, and the dangerous tendency of those divisions towards disunion.

It alone, in my opinion, of all the political agencies now existing, is possessed of the power to silence this violent and disastrous agitation, and restore harmony by its own example of moderation and forbearance. It has a claim, therefore, in my judgment, upon every earnest friend of the integrity of the Union.

So estimating this party, both in its present position and future destiny, I freely adopt its great leading principles, as announced in the recent declaration of the National Council in Philadelphia, a copy of which you were so kind as to enclose to me, holding them to be just and liberal to every true interest of the country, and wisely adapted to the establishment and support of an enlightened, safe, and effective American policy, in full accord with the ideas and the hopes of the fathers of our Republic.

Millard Fillmore, Know Nothing: Part VI

One of Millard Fillmore’s problems in seeking the presidential nomination of the Know Nothings and, later, their votes was the fact that he had absolutely no record as a nativist. Under the circumstances, it is remarkable how little he was willing to say to establish his credentials.

As I noted in the last post, Fillmore joined a KN lodge in late January 1855 and sailed for Europe in May. It appears that, before he left, the only action that Fillmore took to establish his nativist credentials (other than to join a KN lodge) was to write a single letter containing some mildly pro-American rhetoric.

The letter in question, dated January 3, 1855, was sent to Isaac Newton, a Philadelphia Know Nothing and former Whig. According to Michael Holt, “Fillmore instructed Newton to circulate it among Pennsylvania’s Know Nothings, but he insisted that the letter must not be published.”

Fillmore’s daughter, Mary Abigail, had died on July 26, 1854. Six months later, Fillmore related to Newton that he had been too depressed to follow the Fall campaigns closely, although he had “giv[en] a silent vote for Mr. Ullman for Governor,” referring to Daniel Ullman, the Know Nothing candidate for governor of New York in 1854. Fillmore then continued (as usual, I am adding paragraph breaks for readability):

I have for a long time looked with dread and apprehension at the corrupting influence which the contest for the foreign vote is exciting upon our elections. This seems to result from its being banded together, and subject to the control of a few interested and selfish leaders. Hence, it has been a subject of bargain and sale, and each of the great political parties of the country have been bidding to obtain it; and, as usual in all such contests, the party which is most corrupt is most successful.

The consequence is, that it is fast demoralizing the whole country; corrupting the ballot-box – that great palladium of our liberty – into an unmeaning mockery, where the rights of native-born citizens are voted away by those who blindly follow their mercenary and selfish leaders. The evidence of this is found not merely in the shameless chaffering of the foreign vote at every election, but in the large disproportion of offices which are now held by foreigners, at home and abroad, as compared with our native citizens. Where is the true-hearted American whose cheek does not tingle with shame and mortification, to see our highest and most coveted foreign missions filled by men of foreign birth, to the exclusion of the native born? Such appointments are a humiliating confession to the crowned heads of Europe, that a Republican soil does not produce sufficient talent to represent a Republican nation at a monarchial court.

I confess that it seems to me, with all due respect to others, that, as a general rule, our country should be governed by American-born citizens. Let us give to the oppressed of every country an asylum and a home in our happy land; give to all the benefits of equal laws and equal protection; but let us at the same time cherish as the apple of our eye the great principles of constitutional liberty, which few who have not had the good fortune to be reared in a free country know how to appreciate, and still less how to preserve.

Washington, in that inestimable legacy which he left to his country – his Farewell Address – has wisely warned us to beware of foreign influence as the most baneful foe of a republican government. He saw it, to be sure, in a different light from that in which it now presents itself; but he knew that it would approach in all forms, and hence he cautioned us against the insidious wiles of its influence.

Therefore, as well for our own sakes, to whom this invaluable inheritance of self government has been left by our forefathers, as for the sake of the unborn millions who are to inherit this land – foreign and native – let us take warning of the Father of his Country, and do what we can to preserve our institutions from corruption, and our country from dishonor; and let this be done by the people themselves in their sovereign capacity, by making a proper discrimination in the selection of officers, and not by depriving any individual, native or foreign-born, of any constitutional or legal right to which he is now entitled.

Pretty tame stuff, if you ask me, for a man seeking the presidential nomination of a nativist party, particularly given the overheated political rhetoric routinely used during the period.

Millard Fillmore, Know Nothing: Part V

Millard Fillmore had to overcome a number of qualms before deciding to embrace and attempt to infiltrate the KN organization. First, Fillmore was repelled by its structure, which resembled that of a secret society. When Fillmore had first entered politics in 1828, he had done so as a member of the Anti-Masonic party. That party was born of strong feelings against the Masons, a fraternal organization that was perceived to be a secret society whose influence corrupted republican values. In the words of Michael Holt, “As a founder of New York’s Antimasonic party, . . . [Fillmore] abhorred the [KN] order’s secrecy and agreed with Congressman Solomon G. Haven that its initiation rituals were ‘puerile.’”

More important was the fact that Fillmore had little if any sympathy for the nativist agenda of the KNs. To the best of my knowledge, no one has identified any speeches or correspondence by Fillmore before early 1855 endorsing anti-immigrant or anti-Catholic principles. Michael Holt flatly declares that “Fillmore had never condemned Catholics or immigrants,” and had “never publicly expressed any anti-Catholic or nativist sentiments.” To the contrary, the available evidence seems to confirm that Fillmore’s general decency and sense of compassion extended to immigrants. In the words of Tyler Andbinder,

[T]he enrollment of a daughter in a Catholic school and his generous donations for the construction of Catholic churches demonstrated that Fillmore did not sympathize with the militant Protestantism that inspired most American nativists. Fillmore had worked to achieve harmony and consensus, and he valued religious amity as much as sectional tranquility.

Correspondence I have found online confirms that impression. Here, for example, is letter in which Fillmore sought help for and extolled the virtues of a group of German immigrants seeking to move to Kansas. It is particularly noteworthy that Fillmore wrote the letter on December 1, 1854, just as he was wrestling with whether he should join the KNs:

The bearer, Mr John Beyer is a chief man in a religious association of Germans, settled near this city [Buffalo, NY] who contemplate removing to some western state. They have heretofore sent an exploring party to Kansas, but I understand they were not satisfied with that country, and as I have formed a very favorable opinion of your state, I have advised them to look at it before they locate; and I know you will take great pleasure in giving them any information in your power.

As a community, they are most excellent citizens, quiet, peaceable, industrious and honest; excellent agriculturalists and carrying on many branches of manufactures with remarkable skill & neatness. I hope they may find a place to suit them in your state.

A later letter, from 1856, likewise strongly suggests that Fillmore was no hard-core bigot when it came to Catholics. Although he may have had misgivings about the hierarchical nature of the church, it is remarkable that he met and had a long and cordial conversation with the Pope, for whom he expressed admiration. Fillmore’s letter dated January 22, 1856 to Solomon Haven describing the encounter is worth quoting at length because it clearly conveys Fillmore’s basic decency and lack of prejudice. Again, the timing is striking: the KN convention at which Fillmore hoped to be nominated was just a month away. For readability, I have added paragraph breaks:

As in duty bound, I was presented to his Holiness the Pope. He granted me a private audience, but the day before I was to be presented I was told that the etiquette of the Court required all who were presented to kneel and kiss the hand of the Pope, if not his foot. This took me by surprise and when Mr Cass called to accompany me to the Vatican, I informed him of what I had heard, and said if this was the case, I must decline the honor of a presentation. That I could only consent to be presented to the Pope as the sovreign of the State, not as High Priest of a religious sect or denomination. He assured me that I had been misinformed and I consented to accompany him.

I was accordingly presented. His Holiness received me sitting, but very graciously, neither offering hand or foot for salutation, and to my surprise asked me to take a seat and entered very freely and familiarly into conversation for some ten or fifteen minutes. He has a very benevolent face, and I doubt not is a very good man. From all I can learn here, he was really desirous of benefiting those whom he governs, and especially in ameliorating the condition of the common people. But the system which he administers is so bad, and is entrenched so strongly in the political and ecclesiastical despotism of ages, and he is so hedged in by a numerous and selfish priesthood, that he found it impossible. The madness and folly of political demagogues, who without any knowledge of a republican government seized upon the reins of power and committed many excesses, disgusted all well meaning sensible men, and has thrown back all hope of reform here for many years to come.

I was also introduced to Cardinal Antonelli, the minister of foreign affairs. He appears to me like a very intelligent active energetic man and I believe is the chief person in the administration. Some say that he is ambitious but of that I know nothing.

Ironically, Fillmore voiced more doubts about the secular authorities of Europe than he did about the Pope:

Upon the whole I have no cause to complain of the treatment which I have received from the government officials any where in Europe. That they should not like our government, is neither strange nor unnatural, and as long as they do not require me to like theirs I am content. I must say, however, in all candor, that these people seem wholly unfit for a republican form of government. If they can ever reach that it must be by slow degrees through a constitutional monarchy.

Despite these drawbacks, in the end Fillmore concluded that the Know Nothings were the only viable option. Convinced that Know Nothingism provided the “only hope of forming a truly national party, which shall ignore this constant and distracting agitation of slavery” (1/15/55 letter to Alexander H.H. Stuart), “I finally overcame my scruples and at a council in my own house, previous to my departure to Europe, I was initiated into the Order . . ..” (10/30/56 letter to Dorothea Dix)

Fillmore joined the order in late January 1855. In May 1855, he boarded a ship for Europe. He did not return to New York until June 1856.

Millard Fillmore, Know Nothing: Part IV

I concluded the last post on this topic at the end of 1854. After all the election results were in, it was clear to virtually everyone that the Whig party was expiring, if not already dead. Millard Fillmore needed to find a new party that could be used as vehicle out of which to fashion a nationwide pro-Union party.

By process of elimination, only the Know Nothings might serve that purpose. The Democracy was clearly not an appropriate vehicle. Visceral hatred of the Democrats, nurtured over almost two decades, meant that many former Whigs would never adopt the Democratic banner. Moreover, it was the Democrats who had, by introducing the Kansas-Nebraska Act, fomented the latest crisis that threatened sectional peace by overturning the finality of the 1850 Compromise. The increasing radicalism of the Democrats’ southern wing cemented the impossibility of making that party the center of Unionism.

The emerging Republicans were, if anything, even more clearly out of the question. It was precisely such a sectional party, with an incendiary agenda designed to alienate the south, that conservative Union Whigs like Fillmore wanted to smother.

The structure of the Know Nothing organization also made it an attractive takeover target. Know Nothing lodges decided which candidates were preferred and then instructed members how to vote. Lodge members, who were bound by oath, had demonstrated remarkable discipline in voting for approved candidates during 1854. Therefore, if Unionists joined KN lodges in sufficient numbers to control the machinery, they could potentially direct the votes of large blocs of disciplined members and thus transform the party. The KNs could, as Solomon G. Haven, Fillmore’s law partner, put it in a letter to Fillmore on December 9, 1854, “be worked . . . into a national fabrick which should be of service to” national Whigs.

Millard Fillmore, Know Nothing: Part III

As discussed in earlier posts (Part I; Part II), early in 1854 conservative pro-Union Whigs lost control of the debate over the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Nonetheless, at least in the North, it did not appear that the Whig party was in its death throes. Although some were abandoning the Whigs for a new anti-Nebraska coalition party, many others –- William Seward, for example -- continued to see the Whigs as the beneficiaries of the Democrats’ self-inflicted wounds. Although Millard Fillmore and the Silver Gray Whigs disagreed violently with Sewardites on many issues, Fillmore too stuck steadfastly with the Whigs going into the 1854 elections.

Then the Know Nothings exploded onto the public stage. In retrospect, it is possible to see that immigration and related issues had been assuming increased political importance. Anti-immigration groups had shown local strength going back to the 1840s in certain areas, particularly Philadelphia. But the rise of KNs was astonishing. Tyler Andbinder estimates that in early 1854, the KNs boasted about 50,000 members nationwide. By the middle of the year, membership in KN lodges had increased to one million.

What accounted for this phenomenal growth? It is certainly true that the core of the KN agenda was anti-immigrant and particularly anti-Catholic. But the key to the explosion was the fact that KNs embraced a series of other issues and values that they perceived to be related. Among other things, KNs tended to advocate temperance (those drunk Irish and Germans hung out in saloons and polluted on the Sabbath). Many also espoused moderate anti-slavery (in contrast to degraded Europeans and Catholics who, accustomed as they were to serfdom and to taking orders from the Pope, had no problem with slavery). Finally, they also embodied and benefited from an upsurge in anti-party feeling, which sought to teach unresponsive immigrant-catering politicians and political parties a lesson by throwing the bums out).

The KNs wreaked havoc on both major parties in 1854. The trauma was all the more acute because it came out of the blue: since the KNs were organized in secret lodges, their numbers were unknown and their political strength unrecognized. The results varied from state to state, but they particularly devastated the already-weakened Whigs. Most notably, in Massachusetts, long a Whig stronghold, the KNs elected the governor with 63% of the vote, won all eleven congressional contests, and captured all but three of the more than 400 legislative seats.

To make a long story short, by the end of 1854, the Whig party was on life support. It had been torn apart. In a few upper Midwest states, the anti-Nebraska coalition that was coalescing into the Republican party had become the primary anti-Democratic party. In many other northern and southern states, the Know Nothings had gutted the Whigs. The Whig party was clearly no longer a viable vehicle to serve as a national, pro-Union party.

As mentioned, throughout this disorienting year, Millard Fillmore steadfastly clung to the fading Whig banner, seeking to construct strategies that would position it as the one pro-Union party in both north and south. At no point before all of the 1854 results were in did Fillmore suggest, even privately, that the Whigs should consider abandoning their party. Only at end of the year did Fillmore, viewing the wreckage, admit to himself that the Whig party could not be resuscitated, and that a new vehicle must be found to save the Union.

Millard Fillmore, Know Nothing: Part II

The conservative Whig game plan at the beginning of 1854 to ride anti-Kansas Nebraska to victory foundered almost immediately because they lost control of the terms of the debate. Radical free soilers denounced the Act as an aggression of the evil Slave Power; southern Whigs were therefore unwilling or unable to oppose the Act. The Whigs were unable to heal their sectional wounds.

Contrary to common assumption, however, it was not the incipient anti-Nebraska coalition that really destroyed the Whigs as a viable party during 1854. The true culprits were a mistaken assumption about the nature of American politics in the 1850s and a political thunderbolt that came out the blue.

The assumption was that Democratic losses would more or less automatically translate into Whig gains: in other words, that politics was a zero sum game between the two major parties. For the past 150 years, this has largely been the case. The antebellum era was different.

As Michael Holt has explained, the entrenchment of current parties is largely attributable to the adoption of state-printed ballots in the 1890s. This development

measurably increased the difficulty of launching a third party . . .. Since those major parties had an automatic slot on the ballots governments prepared and since the legal hurdles for other parties to get on those ballots were so high, Republicans and Democrats effectively monopolized voters’ choices.

Before the Civil War, however, these impediments did not exist. To the contrary,

the rules of the political game encouraged rather than inhibited the creation of new parties. Instead of state-printed ballots that gave legally recognized major parties pride of place and disadvantaged other groups who sought to be listed on them, political parties printed their own ballots. As a result, it was far easier for new parties to challenge the old ones.

The thunderbolt was the Know Nothings.

Millard Fillmore, Know Nothing: Part I

I have posted previously about Millard Fillmore and have made no bones about my belief that he was an admirable man and a fine president.

Spread out over several installments, I am going to tackle what is generally considered to be the most embarrassing episode in Fillmore’s career – his affiliation with the American (Know Nothing) party, a rabidly anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant group that burst onto the political scene in 1854. In 1856, Fillmore ran as the Know Nothing candidate for the presidency.

It would be easy to assume that Fillmore’s embrace of the Know Nothings merely confirms that he has been justly relegated to historical oblivion. Does it not demonstrate that Fillmore was a disgusting advocate of hatred and discrimination? Alternatively, perhaps it shows that, behind the mannered façade lay an ambition so overweening that he was willing to ally himself with any group, no matter how bigoted, that would advance his selfish ends. Or was he so stupid that he allowed himself to be used by bigots, oblivious to the credibility he gave them?

In order to keep this post manageable, I’ll just begin to set the stage. By the end of 1853, Fillmore’s Whig party was on the ropes. Winfield Scott had been swamped in the 1852 presidential election, and state and local elections during 1853 had largely been disastrous for the Whigs. Even so, at the beginning of 1854, many Whigs were optimistic. They had been on the ropes before and bounced back. What they needed was an issue.

Democrat Stephen Douglas gave them that issue when he introduced the Kansas Nebraska bill in January 1854. Conservative Whigs such as ex-president Fillmore, who had left office in March 1853, looking to restore the Whigs as a credible, national party, began to salivate. Whigs could oppose the bill on the ground that it betrayed the “final settlement” of the slavery issue represented by the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850, which Fillmore had championed.

In this way, Whigs could devastate free-state Democrats by firmly opposing the spread of slavery. At the same time, the Whigs would be taking a position reaffirming the finality of the Compromise of 1850 that would have great appeal in the south. By positioning their opposition in this way, they thought, the Whig party would (in modern terms) both energize its base by opposing the Democrats and take a highly popular position likely to win additional converts, particularly in the north and border and mid south. Whigs would sweep to victory in 1854, laying the groundwork for retaking the presidency in 1856.

Alas, for a number of reasons, it was not to be. In the next installment, we’ll consider why not.

The Know Nothings Are Alive and Well

All those stupid history books claim that the American (aka Know Nothing) party died c. 1857. It turns out they're all wrong. Michael Novak at NRO points out that the KNs are doing just fine.