Modern Day Know Nothings

Author: IwantRooseveltagain

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#1
IwantRooseveltagain
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At an 1855 “American convention” held in Philadelphia, the American Party adopted a platform that would have sweepingly denied political and civil rights to immigrants. Speaking during a downpour, a nativist politician from New York told the crowd, to cheers: “American as I am, I decidedly prefer this rain to the reign of Roman Catholicism in this country … I, as an American citizen, prefer this rain or any other rain to the reign of foreignism … I go for America first, last and always.”

The phrase “ America First”was invoked during the first Red Scare to defend against Bolshevism and on the floor of Congress to pass the raft of laws that imposed racial and ethnic quotas on immigration in the early decades of the 20th century, not to be lifted until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. And it was a favorite slogan of the resurgent Ku Klux Klan, which in the 1920s was a nativist, anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic, antisemitic, antilabor and red-baiting fraternity as well as a white-supremacist one. The point for all these groups was always the same: to defend “real America” against the threats posed by anyone they deemed less than a real American


Today’s Trumpers are as bad as the Know Nothings. 
#2
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Meanwhile, DC and Chicago are swamped with illegal invaders being bussed in daily.

You asked for it, you got it Toyota.
#3
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@IwantRooseveltagain
At an 1855 “American convention” held in Philadelphia, the American Party adopted a platform that would have sweepingly denied political and civil rights to immigrants. Speaking during a downpour, a nativist politician from New York told the crowd, to cheers: “American as I am, I decidedly prefer this rain to the reign of Roman Catholicism in this country … I, as an American citizen, prefer this rain or any other rain to the reign of foreignism … I go for America first, last and always.”

The phrase “ America First”was invoked during the first Red Scare to defend against Bolshevism and on the floor of Congress to pass the raft of laws that imposed racial and ethnic quotas on immigration in the early decades of the 20th century, not to be lifted until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. And it was a favorite slogan of the resurgent Ku Klux Klan, which in the 1920s was a nativist, anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic, antisemitic, antilabor and red-baiting fraternity as well as a white-supremacist one. The point for all these groups was always the same: to defend “real America” against the threats posed by anyone they deemed less than a real American


Today’s Trumpers are as bad as the Know Nothings. 
For America to be first all the history books that says otherwise has to be destroyed or banned. That realization is behind the banning of books in America.
Americans must be made to forget stealing land from the Native Indians, the Civil War, black slavery and all the humiliating withdrawals from countries America waged war on like Vietnam. N Korea, Cuba , Afghanistan, Iraq etc.

#4
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@Shila
Agreed
#5
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--> @Shila
Agreed
Here is what you agreed with!!!

For America to be first all the history books that says otherwise has to be destroyed or banned. That realization is behind the banning of books in America.
Americans must be made to forget stealing land from the Native Indians, the Civil War, black slavery and all the humiliating withdrawals from countries America waged war on like Vietnam. N Korea, Cuba , Afghanistan, Iraq etc.

#6
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@Shila
Yep. 
#7
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You're just jealous. 
#8
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@Greyparrot
Not that European settlers didn't invade back on the day.


Ever since homo-sapiens stood up and scratched its head, it has been invading.

Not always in buses though.


Presumably the first inhabitants of the Americas didn't originate in the Americas.


Of course, NOW is always what matters the most.
#9
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@IwantRooseveltagain
This post shows a complete ignorance of the facts on the ground at the time. 

The Catholic Church in the mid 19th century actually was an existential threat to the republic. If the pope had called for an insurrection against the American republic, a large percentage (probably a majority) of catholic immigrants would have sided with the pope and not the republic. Just because this didn’t happen doesn’t mean the concern wasn’t valid, religion back then was a completely different ballgame than the window dressing that exists now.

In addition, the waves of immigrants from the mid 19th century onward did permanently change the country. Whether or not this was a good or bad thing is just as subjective a question as whether or not immigration driven cultural changes today are good or bad. But make no mistake, the changes absolutely happened.

America pre 1850 was not a nation of immigrants, it was a nation of settlers, it was overwhelmingly native born Protestants of British origin with a smattering of other Northern European Protestants and only about 1% catholic, almost all of whom had families present in colonial America. The very small foreign born population at that time was mostly from culturally similar backgrounds (again, overwhelmingly English speakers of British origin, a few other Northern Europeans) This began to change mid century with waves of Irish and German immigrants followed by a deluge from southern and Eastern Europe which formed the famous Ellis Island “melting pot” immigrants we often think of. These waves of immigrants changed the self conception of the country dramatically, changing it into something quite clearly different culturally and politically.

I say this as a practicing catholic and someone who has some ancestors that came to America post 1850s. This post is very misinformed. If Trumpers = know nothings I would say they have some valid points! 
#10
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Yah, Pre Vatican II was a scary time.
#11
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@Greyparrot
Most people are really bad about having even a rudimentary theory of mind for people in the past but I’ve noticed that hyper partisan people (like the OP) are by far the worst. If you struggle to conceive of historical people as anything other than 21st century Americans with different fashions their beliefs and actions seem so baffling that it’s hard to view them as anything other than caricatures.

Almost everything that happened in history makes sense, even if the logic behind actions is often twisted, misinformed, selfish, or short sighted, when you take into account the full context and the material conditions at the time 
#12
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Every child believes their parents act irrationally.
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#13
IwantRooseveltagain
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There is no difference between a settler and an immigrant other than who got there first.

And who invited you and your crazy Catholic ancestors to this country?

#14
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@IwantRooseveltagain
There is no difference between a settler and an immigrant other than who got there first.
There is a difference in the sense that there was already the ethnogenesis of a distinct American ethnicity by the time mass immigration really kicked off around the ~1850s or so, of people of extremely similar cultural backgrounds whose families were largely in the US for several generations at that point. The point being that the immigrants the Know Nothings worried about actually were different and actually did change the country--the history behind your post is totally wrong

And who invited you and your crazy Catholic ancestors to this country?
WASPs who made a mistake. Although most of the ancestors I have the 19th century nativists wouldn't have liked were Jewish, not Catholic
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#15
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@thett3
There is a difference in the sense that there was already the ethnogenesis of a distinct American ethnicity by the time mass immigration really kicked off 
That’s bullshit.

you said we are a Christian-British country and that was from Jamestown and the Massachusetts Bay Colony. So right from the beginning of settlement we were distinct. 

I don’t know what ethnicity you are but it is likely that when your ancestors came here nobody who was already here welcomed your family. Irish, French, German, Italian, Greek - they were all shit own and told to go back home by the people who were already here.
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#16
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I say this as a practicing catholic and someone who has some ancestors that came to America post 1850s. This post is very misinformed. If Trumpers = know nothings I would say they have some valid points! 
Ya, if real Americans had been able to keep your family out of this country we would be a lot better off today.

#17
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@IwantRooseveltagain
That’s bullshit.

you said we are a Christian-British country and that was from Jamestown and the Massachusetts Bay Colony. So right from the beginning of settlement we were distinct. 
83.5% of white Americans (blacks unfortunately being in bondage at this point) were of English ethnicity in 1790. The remainder were mostly Scottish, German, or Dutch along with a smattering of Irish Protestants. The country as a whole was around 1% Catholic. 

There were less than a million immigrants total between 1790 and 1840, and around half of these were Northern European Protestants. Yes, there were distinctions between these different groups of British people, and some states like Pennsylvania had large German or Dutch populations. But the differences between that version of America and the one that came immediately afterwards with millions of Catholics, Jews, people from all over the world…a lot bigger than the differences between groups of Englishmen! The Know Nothings were reacting to a cultural and civilizational change that was very, very real. The country went from a British ethnostate with a few culturally similar minority groups to a true melting pot in the span of a few decades


I don’t know what ethnicity you are but it is likely that when your ancestors came here nobody who was already here welcomed your family. Irish, French, German, Italian, Greek - they were all shit own and told to go back home by the people who were already here.
Most of my ancestors were here prior to the American revolution, although some were among the people the nativists were complaining about. Doesn’t mean I can’t assess it objectively. I’m not even saying that immigration was a bad thing, just that it did change the country significantly

Ya, if real Americans had been able to keep your family out of this country we would be a lot better off today
Well that’s not very nice!