The American political system in the 1850s.

Political change in 1850s America.

 

Immigration.

 

1845-1854 3 million immigrants came to US. US population was only about 30 million at the time. The immigrants overwhelmingly arrived in northern cities, chiefly New York. Over time they tended to fan out in the country. For the first few years after arrival most of them tended to live in the north-eastern states.

Immigrants came chiefly from Ireland (due to potato famine) and Germany (there had been economic downturn there and failed revolution in 1848). There was significant German immigration to mid Western states. The Germans who settled in Kansas and Missouri tended to be Unionists. There was a strong feeling among the German-American community that slavery was wrong. A large number of new arrivals from Germany were influenced by the liberal nostra of the failed 1848 revolution in Germany. The Anglo-Americans in those states generally inclined towards the Confederacy when the split came. The distinction between the two communities must not be over-emphasised. These are TENDENCIES that are being identified – not iron laws.

Some resented the Irish immigrants coz large majority of Irish immigrants were Catholic. Irish immigration became very large scale in the late 1840s due to the Potato Famine. In Ireland about 75% of the population was Roman Catholic. There had been Irish immigration into America since the 17th century. However, previously Irish immigrants had been overwhelmingly Protestant. George Washington had said he would take his last stand for liberty with his own Scotch-Irish from Virginia. Scotch-Irish denotes Irishmen who were Presbyterian. Their ancestors had come to Ireland from Scotland in the 17th century. From the mid 19th century on Irish immigrants into the United States were Roman Catholics in a high majority of cases. There were many Irish-Americans before this but they were overwhelmingly Prods. About 1 in 3 German were Catholic – the rest Prod.  

 

 

 

 

 

Anti-Catholicism. The great majority of Americans were Protestant till the 1840s.

Anti-Catholicism was due to:

Memories of Catholic persecutions of Prods.

Belief that no Catholic country was democratic.

Belief that Catholic were slaves of the Pope. Big influx of Catholic clergy.

Catholic Church was obscurantist and Catholics lived in wilful ignorance. Mass was in Latin which few Catholics understood.

Fear that Catholic schools would be founded and would be state-funded.

Those who opposed Catholic immigration were called Nativists. They believed Catholics could not be properly American.

Anti-Mexican sentiment. The US went to war against Mexico in 1848. Mexicans were, almost to a man, Roman Catholics at the time.

Just inarticulate prejudice. Guy Fawkes night was celebrated with bonfires in the US at this time. The Orange Order also existed there although it was small. People read ”Foxe’s Book of Martyrs” – a 16th century English work that recounted the public executions of Protestants at the hands of Roman Catholics. Of course it omitted killings of Roman Catholics by Protestant authorities.

Decline of Whigs.

Whigs did not attract much support from new Irish and German Americans. Whigs also failed to pander to nativist sentiment. Some traditional Whig supporters did not vote at all coz Whigs had not blocked Catholic immigration.

Whig vote fell seriously in 1850s. The Whig Party in the UK was in serious decline at the same time which may have had some effect on the situation in the United States.

Democrats picked up lots of votes from new Americans.

Whigs were often believers in temperance –  restricting alcohol or even banning it. This put off many Irish and German Americans.

 

 

 

 

 

Know Nothings.

This was a Nativist organisation. If questioned about their activities by police they were to say, ‘I know nothing’.

Know Nothings formed the short-lived American Party. The American Party campaigned to stop immigration. The Know Nothings claimed to wish to preserve the English-speaking and Protestant character of the United States. Their notion of Nativism was of course an absurdity as it did not extend to the autochthonous race of the Continent – the Native Americans.

Republican Party.

 

Founded 1854. Opposed to the expansion of slavery. Not all Republicans were opposed to slavery itself. This was Lincoln’s position. He disliked slavery and wished to persuade slave states to abolish it for themselves. He assured slave holding states that he would not interfere with the peculiar institution where it already existed. Despite this Lincoln was racist. During the Lincoln-Douglas debates in Illinois he assured voters that he was repulsed by the very suggestion of inter-racial marriage and was an implacable opponent of Negro citizenship.

Many former Know Nothings joined Republicans. So did some erstwhile Whigs (eg. Lincoln). Republicans were not tainted with temperance.

Republicans strong in North – particularly in western states of the North such as Illinois.

Republicans barely existed in South.  The South was mostly Protestant but there was a significant minority of Roman Catholics who were long-established in that region. They were chiefly of French and Spanish descent. These Roman Catholics of Spanish and French ancestry were largely found in Louisiana and Florida. Indeed in Louisiana a considerable number of people spoke French exclusively well into the 20th century.

Many in the South had supported the war against Mexico from 1846-48 with relish. However, Northrons tended to be more circumspect about this. Mexico bordered the South and not the North. Many Southrons and friends and kinsmen who had moved into Texas which declared itself a republic in 1838. The Republic of Texas had been run by Anglophone Protestants and asserted that slave-owning was essential to liberty. These were causes dear to many Southron hearts. Admittedly not a few Northrons felt sympathy for the cause of Anglophonism and Protestantism as both were perceived to be in peril owing to mass immigration. The 1848 Mexican-American War had led to the accession of Texas to the United States as well as the annexation to the United States of vast and virtually uninhabited territories that had previously appertained to Mexico – California, Nevada, Colorado, Arizona, Utah and of course New Mexico. Southrons who were eager to move wagons west were elated to have acquire these new regions. Some dreamt of establishing several new slave states to ensure a water tight Southern majority in Congress.