Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men by Foner Eric;

Author:Foner, Eric; [Foner, Eric;]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0195099818
Publisher: Oxford University Press USA - OSO
Published: 1970-01-15T07:00:00+00:00

There is one duty we would earnestly urge upon the plain good sense and just feeling of our adopted citizens. It is the duty of thoroughly Americanizing themselves. . . . They should imbue themselves with American feelings. They should not herd themselves together for the preservation of the customs, habits, and languages of the countries from which they came.

These Republicans did not demand that immigrants give up all their values and beliefs as the price for acceptance in America. They believed that a “protestant toleration of all creeds and opinions” ought to be observed. But they did insist that the clannishness and selfsegregation of immigrant groups come to an end, so that the United States could be “one harmonious and homogeneous people.–8

There were several other reasons, however, why many Republicans found nativist ideas attractive. Political nativism gave expression to the widespread concern among native-born citizens about the increasing political participation and power of foreigners. It was only natural that such feelings were especially pronounced among Whigs and, later, Republicans, because immigrants were generally absorbed into the urban political machines of the Democratic party and voted overwhelmingly for Democratic candidates. Federal law prescribed a five-year naturalization period before immigrants could attain citizenship, but in some Democratic states even this waiting period was waived, and resident aliens who declared their intention to become citizens were given the vote.9 Whigs and Republicans strongly believed that the immigrants’ increasing political power was being wielded by the Catholic Church and the Democratic bosses, especially since they thought foreigners were “by education and custom . . . more submissive to the voice of authority” than native-born Americans. Nativists charged that unscrupulous Democratic politicians obtained fraudulent naturalization papers for foreigners, and then herded them to the polls to vote the straight Democratic ticket. It was a major demand of the Know-Nothing party, and of many Republicans as well, that a system of voter registration be established to prevent these frauds and “secure the purification of the ballot–box.”10

Because the political power of the immigrants was concentrated in the large towns and cities, the nativist reaction was most pronounced there. But rural anti-slavery men had their own reasons for resenting the political power of foreigners. Many Republicans were advocates of temperance legislation, while German and Irish immigrants were known to enjoy a good drink, and regularly voted against prohibition legislation. Even more important, anti-slavery men were outraged by immigrant opposition to the anti-slavery movement. Nowhere was this more apparent than in Massachusetts, whose Irish immigrants were products of a culture characterized by hostility to reformism and deep respect for class distinctions. The pro-slavery atttudes of Boston’s Irish were notorious, and Free Soilers attributed their electoral defeats in large measure to the Irish vote. Then in 1853, after the anti-slavery men had succeeded in drafting a new constitution substantially reducing the political power of conservative Boston, the document was defeated at the polls by the Irish vote.11 When the Know-Nothing movement emerged in 1854, one political observer declared that

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