Know-Nothing

In an otherwise informative article on the early history of the Urseline nuns in the United States comes to whopper.

An interesting footnote: In the 1844 elections, the Nativists formed the Republican Party, allied with the Whigs, and defeated the Democratic Party. And we thought Karl Rove was bad.

Especially since the height of the Nativist success was the Election of 1856 and they had all but disappeared by the Election of 1860, when most of their anti-slavery members went to the new Republican Party. In the period before 1854 they were still mainly secret societies who through their weight behind sympathetic candidates. As a result of the election of 1854 they formed the American Party (popularly called the Know-Nothings) and swallowed many members of the now nearly-defunct Whig party, as well as a significant number of Democrats, especially Northern Democrats. After the election 1860 they were no longer a serious national movement but became just a local political party in New York City

So to say that the Nativist movement formed the GOP is just plain silly considering that they became a political party ten years later than that. The Republican party was not formed until the early 1850’s and did not have it’s first meeting until 1854 and its first national election till 1856. That there were Nativist in both the Democratic Party and what became the Republican Party is obviously true, but this simplistic statement that it was the Nativists who formed the GOP (even discounting the time error) just shows a need for a fact-checker maybe in this case the writer just didn’t know nothing.

I was going to send the paper a comment about the error in this story but clicking the Questions/Comments page says "You have tried to access a page that does not exist." If that isn’t a metaphor for the MSM I don’t know what is.

Of course the Know-Nothing’s were primarily an anti-Catholic party who distrusted the Pope and were convinced that the Pope was waiting for the right time to regain lost temporal powers. There are inheritors to the Know-Nothings around today though. You can spot them especially during judicial hearings. People like Chuck Shumer who were concerned about Bill Pryor’s deeply held beliefs and thus thinks that since Bill Pryor appeared to be a devout Catholic that this in itself disqualifies him. The modern Know-Nothings though are more inclusive in being accepting of Catholics that aren’t accepting of all that the Church teaches.

In related news the Urseline Sister have been closely tied to New Orleans since they first landed there in August of 1727. So it will be appropriate to pray to Our Lady of Prompt Succor with Hurricane Katrina approaching there. Naming a hurricane Katrina is ironically appropriate since there was a group in the 80s called Katrina and the Waves (considering the impending storm surge), but also that their one hit was Walking on Sunshine. Being a resident of Florida tracking hurricanes has only shown me how shallow and selfish I am. Once the path is not in my direction there is a sigh of relief that is not always followed up with prayer for those who are in the path.