The “American Party”, who were also known as the “Know-Nothings”, started out as a semi-secret society and were called the “Know-Nothings” because if outsiders asked members about the party, they were supposed to say, “I know nothing.” The group was made up of white Protestant men who were disturbed by the influx of immigrants during the 1840's and 1850's, especially Catholics, which changed the social landscape of America to something that was new to these nativist Americans - and they didn't like it. They wanted to Make America Great Again, that is "back to the way it used to be".
Look at these comparative maps showing Trump support in 2016 (areas of strong support in red) and the Know Nothing Presidential Results in 1856 (areas of strong support in yellow):
Of course, in 1856 much of the western part of the US was sparsely inhabited, and the red areas of Oklahoma, South Dakota, eastern Colorado and northern New Mexico were still territories at that time, so they were not included in Presidential elections.
However, there are a number of regions that are surprisingly similar: much of the Old South still supports the ideas the Trump has revived from the Know-Nothings, such as Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama along the Gulf of Mexico. The Appalachia states of Tennessee and North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky are still strong in their support of those ideas, even Missouri and upstate rural New York follow the same pattern in 2016 as they did in 1856.
Interestingly, South Carolina did not support the Know-Nothings in 1856 and that seems to hold true for Trump 160 years later; it is one of the few areas in the US southeast that is not dark red in the Trump support map.
California in 1856 voted for the Know-Nothings as a backlash against Chinese immigration at that time, there still seems to be support for those ideas in the southwest, although it is more spread out through Arizona, western Oregon, and northern Nevada, perhaps because of Mexican immigration in those areas of the US.
As much as Trump has tried to refer back to the Republican Party as the “party of Lincoln”, it is quite clear that his ideas are actually those of the Know-Nothings. In fact, Abraham Lincoln despised the beliefs of the American Party. In a letter, he wrote:
“I am not a Know-Nothing – that is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equals, except negroes and foreigners and Catholics.' When it comes to that I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.” Browne, Francis Fisher (1914). The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln: A Narrative and Descriptive Biography with Pen-pictures and Personal Recollections by Those who Knew Him. Browne & Howell. p. 153.
Possibly the only difference between Trump and the Know-Nothings would be to subsitute Muslims for Catholics. Trump and his supporters seem to fear Muslims for the same reason the Know-Nothings feared Catholics (especially those who had recently emigrated to America): their religious beliefs and loyalties would be opposed to what the American Party saw as national beliefs and loyalties.
There are other similarities between Trump and the Know-Nothings: their popularity increased dramatically, from 50,000 to over 1,000,000 members in only one year as the Whig Party collapsed in 1854. With only the Democratic Party remaining, many people joined the American Party rather than the newly-formed Republican Party. This is similar to Trump’s astonishing rise in popularity since he started his campaign last year, with the post-Tea Party vacuum of leadership of the current Republican Party.
Despite its sudden rise, the American Party also declined quickly. Millard Fillmore (a former President with the Whig Party) only garnered 23% of the vote in 1856, behind the Democrat and Republican candidates.
Hopefully, Trump's campaign and ideas will go the way of the American Party: with the election of Abraham Lincoln and rise of the new second party (Republican), as well as internal dissent among the Know-Nothings, their influence and existence were short-lived. By the 1860 Presidential election, the American Party was all but gone for good.
While racism and intolerance are unfortunately still alive, let's all work toward making sure those beliefs don't win on November 8 by showing the facts of Donald Trump's campaign, his past actions, and his temperament make him unfit for the US Presidency and that all good, thinking, compassionate people will not accept those ideas as representing our society.
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