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63-419: The Commercial Tribune was created in 1896 by the merger of the longstanding Commercial Gazette and newcomer Cincinnati Tribune . Murat Halstead was a well-known editor of The Commercial and The Commercial Gazette in the 1860s-1880s. A representative of John Roll McLean , owner of The Cincinnati Enquirer , acquired the paper in 1911, and continued to operate it as a Republican paper (as opposed to

126-734: A nativist political movement in the United States in the 1850s, officially known as the Native American Party before 1855, and afterwards simply the American Party . Members of the movement were required to say "I know nothing" whenever they were asked about its specifics by outsiders, providing the group with its colloquial name. Supporters of the Know Nothing movement believed that an alleged " Romanist " conspiracy to subvert civil and religious liberty in

189-503: A Catholic church in Bath, Maine . The most aggressive and innovative legislation came out of Massachusetts, where the new party controlled all but three of the 400 seats—only 35 had any previous legislative experience. The Massachusetts legislature in 1855 passed a series of reforms that "burst the dam against change erected by party politics, and released a flood of reforms." The period from 1854 to 1857 saw among Massachusetts Know Nothings

252-478: A decline in the traditional nativist wing of the party and the rise of the group of abolitionists and reformers, including former Massachusetts Senate President Henry Wilson , looking to redirect the focus of the party. Historian Stephen Taylor says that in addition to nativist legislation, "the party also distinguished itself by its opposition to slavery, support for an expansion of the rights of women, regulation of industry, and support of measures designed to improve

315-475: A dishonest truckler for unsound popularity; a false pretender to notions of honor, and a foul-mouthed bully self convicted of cowardice, though a coat of whitewash a foot in thickness would not cause him to pass for a gentleman, it cannot be denied that he will make a most admirable candidate. In 1890, he moved to Brooklyn , New York, where he edited the Standard Union , though he continued to write for

378-473: A field day following the story, especially when it was discovered that the key reformer was using committee funds to pay for a prostitute. The legislature shut down its committee, ejected the reformer, and saw its investigation become a laughing stock. The Know Nothings scored a landslide in New Hampshire in 1855. They won 51% of the vote, including 94% of the anti-slavery Free Soilers , and 79% of

441-639: A fourth of the German and British Protestants in numerous state elections. It especially appealed to Protestants such as the Lutherans, Dutch Reformed and Presbyterians. Fearful that Catholics were flooding the polls with non-citizens, local activists threatened to stop them. On August 6, 1855, rioting broke out in Louisville, Kentucky , during a hotly contested race for the office of governor. Twenty-two were killed and many injured. This " Bloody Monday " riot

504-520: A lack of publicly proclaimed national leaders, and a deep split over the issue of slavery . In parts of the South, the party did not emphasize anti-Catholicism as frequently as it emphasized it in the North and it stressed a neutral position on slavery, but it became the main alternative to the dominant Democratic Party . The Know Nothings supplemented their xenophobic views with populist appeals. At

567-759: A lineage dating from the founding of Centinel of the Northwest Territory in 1793, though in reality that entity is considered to have moved to Chillicothe, Ohio with its owner in 1800. More accurately, Thomas Palmer published the first issue of the Cincinnati Gazette on July 15, 1815, which he merged with the pre-existing Liberty Hall later that year, a paper which had been founded in 1804. A daily paper (the Daily Gazette ) first appeared on July 25, 1827. Murat Halstead Murat Halstead (September 2, 1829 – July 2, 1908)

630-580: A local reporter, and soon became news editor. The following year, he acquired a pecuniary interest in the paper, which began rapidly to increase in circulation and influence. He personally reported several battles during the Civil War . He was also a war correspondent for the Franco-Prussian War , where he sided emphatically with the Germans. In 1867, he acquired a controlling interest in

693-690: A major political party in the form of the American Party. The collapse of the Whig Party after the passage of the Kansas–Nebraska Act left an opening for the emergence of a new major political party in opposition to the Democratic Party. The Know Nothing movement managed to elect congressman Nathaniel P. Banks of Massachusetts and several other individuals into office in the 1854 elections , and it subsequently coalesced into

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756-734: A minor role in American politics until the arrival of large numbers of Irish and German Catholics started in the 1840s. It then emerged in nativist attacks. It appeared in New York City politics as early as 1843 under the banner of the American Republican Party . The movement quickly spread to nearby states using that name or Native American Party or variants of it. They succeeded in a number of local and Congressional elections, notably in 1844 in Philadelphia, where

819-593: A new political party which was known as the American Party. Particularly in the South , the American Party served as a vehicle for politicians who opposed the Democrats. Many of the American Party's members and supporters also hoped that it would stake out a middle ground between the pro-slavery positions of Democratic politicians and the radical anti-slavery positions of the rapidly emerging Republican Party . The American Party nominated former President Millard Fillmore in

882-407: A political party called the American Party, which attracted many members of the by then nearly defunct Whig party as well as a significant number of Democrats. Membership in the American Party increased dramatically, from 50,000 to an estimated one million plus in a matter of months during that year. The historian Tyler Anbinder concluded: The key to Know Nothing success in 1854 was the collapse of

945-820: A student near Cincinnati, he contributed to the Commercial and especially to the literary department of the Gazette . After leaving college, he became connected with the Cincinnati Atlas , and then with the Enquirer . He afterward established a Sunday newspaper in Cincinnati, and from 1852 to 1853 worked on the Columbian and Great West , a weekly. He began work on the Commercial on March 8, 1853, as

1008-465: A white man in court. In the spring of 1855 , Know Nothing candidate Levi Boone was elected mayor of Chicago and barred all immigrants from city jobs. Abraham Lincoln was strongly opposed to the principles of the Know Nothing movement, but did not denounce it publicly because he needed the votes of its membership to form a successful anti-slavery coalition in Illinois. Ohio was the only state where

1071-752: The Dred Scott v. Sandford pro-slavery decision of the Supreme Court of the United States further galvanized opposition to slavery in the North, causing many former Know Nothings to join the Republicans. The remnants of the American Party largely joined the Constitutional Union Party in 1860 and they disappeared during the American Civil War . Anti-Catholicism was widespread in colonial America , but it played

1134-568: The 1856 presidential election , but he kept quiet about his membership in it, and he personally refrained from supporting the Know Nothing movement's activities and ideology . Fillmore received 21.5% of the popular vote in the 1856 presidential election, finishing behind the Democratic and Republican nominees. Henry Winter Davis , an active Know-Nothing, was elected on the American Party ticket to Congress from Maryland. He told Congress that "un-American" Irish Catholic immigrants were to blame for

1197-622: The Commercial . After pursuing for a time a course of independent journalism, he allied himself with the Republican Party . The Cincinnati Gazette was consolidated with his paper in 1883, and he became president of the company that published the combined journal under the name of the Commercial Gazette , also a recognized organ of the Republicans. Halstead attended and reported upon every major party's presidential nominating convention from February 1856, when he attended

1260-774: The Commercial Gazette . President Benjamin Harrison nominated him for Minister to Germany , but the nomination was rejected by the Senate , perhaps due to editorials he had written accusing some senators of purchasing their seats. At the start of the Spanish–American War , he became a war correspondent and went to the Philippines . His later years he spent writing books, mainly biographies, and contributing articles to magazines. He died at his home in Cincinnati on July 2, 1908, being survived by his wife and nine children. He

1323-611: The Democratic Party slant of the Enquirer ). The decline in Republican fortunes and the financial situation of the paper in general led to its close in December 1930. The Cincinnati Commercial debuted on October 2, 1843. The original publishers were Greeley Curtis and Hastings. Hastings did not stay long with the paper, and Curtis later brought on his brother-in-law J.W.S. Browne as a partner. Murat Halstead joined

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1386-475: The second party system , brought about primarily by the demise of the Whig Party. The Whig Party, weakened for years by internal dissent and chronic factionalism, was nearly destroyed by the Kansas–Nebraska Act . Growing anti-party sentiment, fueled by anti-slavery sentiment as well as temperance and nativism, also contributed to the disintegration of the party system. The collapsing second party system gave

1449-417: The " Know-Nothing " convention that nominated Millard Fillmore , until his death in 1908. In an essay for the magazine Quest , American journalist and historian Garry Wills ranked Halstead above H.L. Mencken as "the classic reporter of our conventions," illustrating Halstead's penchant for fun invective with, among other things, his raucous description of Stephen Douglas : An exposed political empyric;

1512-528: The 1855 fall elections the Know Nothings again swept New Hampshire against the Democrats and the small new Republican party. When the Know Nothing "American Party" collapsed in 1856 and merged with the Republicans, New Hampshire now had a two party system with the Republicans edging out the Democrats. The Know Nothings also dominated politics in Rhode Island, where in 1855 William W. Hoppin held

1575-670: The Commercial in 1853, and later obtained some ownership, and a controlling interest by 1867. Partner M.D. Potter bought land to build the Cincinnati Commercial Building at the corner of Fourth and Race in 1859. One of the predecessors of the Tribune , the Commercial Gazette , was created in 1883 from the merger of the Cincinnati Commercial and Daily Gazette . The Gazette once claimed

1638-429: The Democrats and the emergence of the anti-slavery Republican party in the North. In the South as a whole, the American Party was strongest among former Unionist Whigs. States-rightist Whigs shunned it, enabling the Democrats to win most of the South. Whigs supported the American Party because of their desire to defeat the Democrats, their unionist sentiment, their anti-immigrant attitudes and the Know Nothing neutrality on

1701-696: The Know Nothing candidate Daniel Ullman came in third in a four-way race for governor by gathering 26% of the vote. After the 1854 elections, they exerted a large amount of political influence in Maine, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and California, but historians are unsure about the accuracy of this information due to the secrecy of the party, because all parties were in turmoil and the anti-slavery and prohibition issues overlapped with nativism in complex and confusing ways. They helped elect Stephen Palfrey Webb as mayor of San Francisco and they also helped elect J. Neely Johnson as governor of California. Nathaniel P. Banks

1764-452: The Know Nothings a much larger pool of potential converts than was available to previous nativist organizations, allowing the Order to succeed where older nativist groups had failed. In San Francisco , a Know Nothing chapter was founded in 1854 to oppose Chinese immigration—members included a judge of the state supreme court, who ruled that no Chinese person could testify as a witness against

1827-466: The South and integration into its society. Immigrants fears were unjustified, however, because the national debate over slavery and its expansion, not nativism or anti-Catholicism, was the major reason for Know-Nothing success in the South. The southerners who supported the Know-Nothings did so, for the most part, because they thought the Democrats who favored the expansion of slavery might break up

1890-495: The Union. In 1855, the American Party challenged the Democrats' dominance. In Alabama, the Know Nothings were a mix of former Whigs, malcontented Democrats and other political misfits; they favored state aid to build more railroads. In the fierce campaign, the Democrats argued that Know Nothings could not protect slavery from Northern abolitionists. The Know Nothing American Party disintegrated soon after losing in 1855. In Virginia,

1953-501: The United States in the period between 1830 and 1860 made religious differences between Catholics and Protestants a political issue. Violence occasionally erupted at the polls. Protestants alleged that Pope Pius IX had contributed to the failure of the liberal Revolutions of 1848 in Europe and they also alleged that he was an enemy of liberty, democracy and republicanism . One Boston minister described Catholicism as "the ally of tyranny,

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2016-512: The United States was being hatched by Catholics . Therefore, they sought to politically organize native-born Protestants in defense of their traditional religious and political values. The Know Nothing movement is remembered for this theme because Protestants feared that Catholic priests and bishops would control a large bloc of voters. In most places, the ideology and influence of the Know Nothing movement lasted only one or two years before it disintegrated due to weak and inexperienced local leaders,

2079-422: The Whig Party was strongest in high income districts, the Know Nothing electorate was strongest in the poor districts. They expelled the traditional upper-class, closed, political leadership, especially the lawyers and merchants. In their stead, they elected working-class men, farmers and a large number of teachers and ministers. Replacing the moneyed elite were men who seldom owned $ 10,000 in property. Nationally,

2142-476: The Whigs, plus 15% of Democrats and 24% of those who abstained in the previous election for governor the year before. In full control of the legislature, the Know Nothings enacted their entire agenda. According to Lex Renda, they battled traditionalism and promoted rapid modernization. They extended the waiting period for citizenship to slow down the growth of Irish power; they reformed the state courts. They expanded

2205-686: The anti-Catholic orator Lewis Charles Levin was elected Representative from Pennsylvania's 1st district. In the early 1850s, numerous secret orders grew up, of which the Order of United Americans and the Order of the Star Spangled Banner came to be the most important. They emerged in New York in the early 1850s as a secret order that quickly spread across the North, reaching non-Catholics, particularly those who were lower middle class or skilled workers. The name Know Nothing originated in

2268-601: The civil rights of Irish Catholic immigrants. After this, state courts lost the power to process applications for citizenship and public schools had to require compulsory daily reading of the Protestant Bible (which the nativists were sure would transform the Catholic children). The governor disbanded the Irish militias and replaced Irish holding state jobs with Protestants. However, Know Nothing lawmakers failed to reach

2331-410: The election by a landslide. In Washington, D.C., Know Nothing candidate John T. Towers defeated incumbent Mayor John Walker Maury , triggering opposition of such a high proportion that the Democrats, Whigs, and Freesoilers in the capital united as the "Anti-Know-Nothing Party". In New York, where James Harper had been elected mayor of New York City as an American Republican almost a decade before,

2394-425: The first five years of the 1850s reached a level five times greater than a decade earlier. Most of the new arrivals were poor Catholic peasants or laborers from Ireland and Germany who crowded the tenements of large cities. Crime and welfare costs soared. Cincinnati's crime rate, for example, tripled between 1846 and 1853 and its murder rate increased sevenfold. Boston's expenditures for poor relief rose threefold during

2457-489: The governorship and five out of every seven votes went to the party, which dominated the Rhode Island legislature. Local newspapers such as The Providence Journal fueled anti-Irish and anti-Catholic sentiment. In the Southern United States, the American Party was composed chiefly of ex-Whigs looking for a vehicle to fight the dominant Democratic Party and worried about both the pro-slavery extremism of

2520-451: The importation of supposedly subversive government documents and academic books from Europe. It upgraded the legal status of wives, giving them more property rights and more rights in divorce courts. It passed harsh penalties on speakeasies, gambling houses and bordellos. It passed prohibition legislation with penalties that were so stiff—such as six months in prison for serving one glass of beer—that juries refused to convict defendants. Many of

2583-416: The intrusion of religious influence on the political arena. These influences have brought vast multitudes of foreign-born citizens to the polls, ignorant of American interests, without American feelings, influenced by foreign sympathies, to vote on American affairs; and those votes have, in point of fact, accomplished the present result. The party entered a period of rapid decline after Fillmore's loss. In 1857

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2646-468: The new party leadership showed incomes, occupation, and social status that were about average. Few were wealthy, according to detailed historical studies of once-secret membership rosters. Fewer than 10% were unskilled workers who might come in direct competition with Irish laborers. They enlisted few farmers, but on the other hand they included many merchants and factory owners. The party's voters were by no means all native-born Americans, for it won more than

2709-406: The number and power of banks; they strengthened corporations; they defeated a proposed 10-hour workday law. They reformed the tax system; increased state spending on public schools; set up a system to build high schools; prohibited the sale of liquor; and they denounced the expansion of slavery in the western territories. The Whigs and Free Soil parties both collapsed in New Hampshire in 1854–55. In

2772-471: The opponent of material prosperity, the foe of thrift, the enemy of the railroad, the caucus, and the school". These fears encouraged conspiracy theories regarding papal intentions of subjugating the United States through a continuing influx of Catholics controlled by Irish bishops obedient to and personally selected by the Pope. In 1849, an oath-bound secret society , the Order of the Star Spangled Banner ,

2835-567: The party gained strength in 1855. Their Ohio success seems to have come from winning over immigrants, especially German-American Lutherans and Scots-Irish Presbyterians, both hostile to Catholicism. In Alabama, Know Nothings were a mix of former Whigs, discontented Democrats and other political outsiders who favored state aid to build more railroads. Virginia attracted national attention in its tempestuous 1855 gubernatorial election. Democrat Henry Alexander Wise won by convincing state voters that Know Nothings were in bed with Northern abolitionists. With

2898-513: The party supported a Jewish candidate for governor, Daniel Ullman , in 1854. In the spring of 1854, the Know Nothings carried Boston and Salem, Massachusetts, and other New England cities. They swept the state of Massachusetts in the fall 1854 elections, their biggest victory. The Whig candidate for mayor of Philadelphia, editor Robert T. Conrad , was soon revealed as a Know Nothing as he promised to crack down on crime, close saloons on Sundays and only appoint native-born Americans to office—he won

2961-512: The party's success in sweeping to almost complete control of the Massachusetts legislature after its 1854 landslide victory. He finds the new party was populist and highly democratic, hostile to wealth, elites and to expertise, and deeply suspicious of outsiders, especially Catholics. The new party's voters were concentrated in the rapidly growing industrial towns, where Yankee workers faced direct competition with new Irish immigrants. Whereas

3024-456: The recent election of Democrat James Buchanan as president, stating: The recent election has developed in an aggravated form every evil against which the American party protested. Foreign allies have decided the government of the country – men naturalized in thousands on the eve of the election. Again in the fierce struggle for supremacy, men have forgotten the ban which the Republic puts on

3087-480: The reforms were quite expensive; state spending rose 45% on top of a 50% hike in annual taxes on cities and towns. This extravagance angered the taxpayers, and few Know Nothings were reelected. These successes at enacting reform legislation came at the expense of the traditional nativist priorities of the party, causing some national Know Nothing leaders, like Samuel Morse, to question the Massachusetts party's aims. The Massachusetts Know Nothings did advance attacks on

3150-600: The same period. Unlike later antisemitic nativist groups in the U.S. , and despite their zealous xenophobia and religious bigotry, the Know Nothings did not focus their ire on Jews or Judaism. Prioritizing a zealous disdain for Irish and German Catholic immigrants, the Know Nothing Party "had nothing to say about Jews", according to historian Hasia Diner , reportedly because its backers believed Jews, unlike Catholics, did not allow "their religious feelings to interfere with their political views." In New York ,

3213-609: The semi-secret organization of the party. When a member of the party was asked about his activities, he was supposed to say, "I know nothing." Outsiders derisively called the party's members "Know Nothings", and the name stuck. In 1855, the Know Nothings first entered politics under the American Party label. Defunct Newspapers Journals TV channels Websites Other Economics Gun rights Identity politics Nativist Religion Watchdog groups Youth/student groups Miscellaneous Other The immigration of large numbers of Irish and German Catholics to

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3276-617: The slavery issue. David T. Gleeson notes that many Irish Catholics in the South feared that the arrival of the Know-Nothing movement portended a serious threat. He argues: The southern Irish, who had seen the dangers of Protestant bigotry in Ireland, had the distinct feeling that the Know-Nothings were an American manifestation of that phenomenon. Every migrant, no matter how settled or prosperous, also worried that this virulent strain of nativism threatened his or her hard-earned gains in

3339-449: The state level, the party was, in some cases, progressive in its stances on "issues of labor rights and the need for more government spending" and furnished "support for an expansion of the rights of women , the regulation of industry, and support of measures which were designed to improve the status of working people." It was a forerunner of the temperance movement in the United States . The Know Nothing movement briefly emerged as

3402-435: The status of working people". It passed legislation to regulate railroads, insurance companies and public utilities. It funded free textbooks for the public schools and raised the appropriations for local libraries and for the school for the blind. Purification of Massachusetts against divisive social evils was a high priority. The legislature set up the state's first reform school for juvenile delinquents while trying to block

3465-401: The summers on his father's farm and the winters in school until he was nineteen years old, and, after teaching for a few months, in 1848 entered Farmer's College , near Cincinnati, where he graduated in 1851. He then decided to study law. He had begun writing for newspapers when he was 18, writing for The Hamilton Intelligencer and The Roseville Democrat , two Butler Country papers. While

3528-501: The two-thirds majority needed to pass a state constitutional amendment to restrict voting and office holding to men who had resided in Massachusetts for at least 21 years. The legislature then called on Congress to raise the requirement for naturalization from five years to 21 years, but Congress never acted. The most dramatic move by the Know Nothing legislature was to appoint an investigating committee designed to prove widespread sexual immorality underway in Catholic convents. The press had

3591-524: The victory by Wise, the movement began to collapse in the South. Know Nothings scored victories in Northern state elections in 1854, winning control of the legislature in Massachusetts and polling 40% of the vote in Pennsylvania. Although most of the new immigrants lived in the North, resentment and anger against them was national and the American Party initially polled well in the South, attracting

3654-431: The votes of many former southern Whigs. The party name gained wide, but brief, popularity: Know Nothing candy, tea, and toothpicks appeared, and the name was given to stagecoaches, buses, and ships. In Trescott , Maine, a shipowner dubbed his new 700-ton freighter Know-Nothing. The party was occasionally referred to, contemporaneously, in a slightly pejorative shortening, "Knism". Historian John Mulkern has examined

3717-609: Was an American newspaper editor and magazine writer. He was a war correspondent during three wars. Born in Paddy's Run (now Shandon, Ohio ) in Butler County, Ohio , he was the son of Griffin Halstead, a farmer. With his mother's help, he was a reader by the time he was four, and during his boyhood read works such as Plutarch's Lives , Josephus , Revolutions in Europe and Charles Rollin 's Ancient History . He spent

3780-582: Was buried at Spring Grove Cemetery . His son Marshall, at one time United States consul in Birmingham , England, predeceased him. His reports from the 1860 presidential election have been collected as Three against Lincoln; Murat Halstead reports the caucuses of 1860 , ed. William Best Hesseltine. Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University Press, 1960. OCLC 337677. He also wrote a number of books, including: He contributed to these newspapers and magazines: Know Nothing The Know Nothings were

3843-492: Was elected to Congress as a Know Nothing candidate, but after a few months he aligned with Republicans. A coalition of Know Nothings, Republicans and other members of Congress opposed to the Democratic Party elected Banks to the position of Speaker of the House . The results of the 1854 elections were so favorable to the Know Nothings, up to then an informal movement with no centralized organization, that they formed officially as

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3906-462: Was founded by Charles B. Allen in New York City. At its inception, the Order of the Star Spangled Banner only had about 36 members. Fear of Catholic immigration caused some Protestants to become dissatisfied with the Democratic Party , whose leaders included Catholics of Irish descent in many cities. Activists formed secret groups, coordinating their votes and throwing their weight behind candidates who were sympathetic to their cause: Immigration during

3969-404: Was not the only violent riot between Know Nothings and Catholics in 1855. In Baltimore , the mayoral elections of 1856, 1857, and 1858 were all marred by violence and well-founded accusations of ballot-rigging. In the coastal town of Ellsworth, Maine , in 1854, Know Nothings were associated with the tarring and feathering of a Catholic priest, Jesuit Johannes Bapst . They also burned down

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