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The Know Nothing Party

1840's-50's

Argument: Because of the mass of amounts of catholics, and immigrants, 'true' americans felt that catholics were more loyal to the pope, and immigrants posed a threat to the economic, and political security. (1)
Failures: By refusing to oppose slavery, many decided to side with other parties. Thereafter, those in the party who were anti-slavery decided to leave the party. This showed that slavery and expansion was a much more important issue. Also, in the election of 1856, the Know Nothing Party ran Millard Fillmore as its candidate for President. In the end he received almost 900,000 votes out of the approximately four million votes. (1)
Goals: The Know Nothing Party wanted to prevent catholics, and immigrents from being elected into political offices. Also, manu of those in the party wanted to deny non americans any job oppurtunities they had. (1)
Democratic Ideals: Made up middle class workers, and farmers supporters opposed the 'aliens' of their nation, by expressing their rights as being american citizens. (1)
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