Nativism and Slavery: The Northern Know Nothings and the Politics of the 1850s / Edition 1

by Tyler G. Anbinder, Anbinder

Overview

Although the United States has always portrayed itself as a sanctuary for the world's victim's of poverty and oppression, anti-immigrant movements have enjoyed remarkable success throughout American history. None attained greater prominence than the Order of the Star Spangled Banner, a fraternal order referred to most commonly as the Know Nothing party. Vowing to reduce the political influence of immigrants and Catholics, the Know Nothings burst onto the American political scene in 1854, and by the end of the following year they had elected eight governors, more than one hundred congressmen, and thousands of other local officials including the mayors of Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Chicago. After their initial successes, the Know Nothings attempted to increase their appeal by converting their network of lodges into a conventional political organization, which they christened the "American Party". Recently, historians have pointed to the Know Nothings' success as evidence that ethnic and religious issues mattered more to nineteenth-century voters than better-known national issues such as slavery. In this important book, however, Anbinder argues that the Know Nothings' phenomenal success was inextricably linked to the firm stance their northern members took against the extension of slavery. Most Know Nothings, he asserts, saw slavery and Catholicism as interconnected evils that should be fought in tandem. Although the Know Nothings certainly were bigots, their party provided an early outlet for the anti-slavery sentiment that eventually led to the Civil War. Anbinder's study presents the first comprehensive history of America's most successful anti-immigrant movement, as wellas a major reinterpretation of the political crisis that led to the Civil War.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195072334
Publisher:	Oxford University Press, USA
Publication date:	08/28/1992
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	6.31(w) x 9.56(h) x 1.04(d)
Lexile:	1600L (what's this?)

About the Author

University of Wyoming

Editorial Reviews

"The main thrust of Nativism and Slavery, and what makes it both interesting and valuable, is the very powerful and convincing argument put forward by the author, and buttressed by numerous statistical tables, charts and maps, that the unparalleled success of the Know Nothings in the mid-1850s occurred because Northerners chose to express their intense antislavery sentiments through this party."—New York Times Book Review

"Perceptive....Tyler Anbinder has solved the mystery of how the antislavery tail could wag the nativist dog....This fine book steers the study of antebellum politics back on course from the diversion of ethnocultural historians."—The New Republic

"An important and provocative book."—Choice

From the Publisher