CLEP U.S. History I 086: Nativism and the Know-Nothing Movement

CLEP U.S. History I 086: Nativism and the Know-Nothing Movement

U.S. History to 1877 | Chapter 16 | Lesson 16.2

Nativism treated native-born Protestants as the proper guardians of the republic and Catholic immigrants as a political danger. Critics alleged that Catholics obeyed the pope rather than constitutional government. Economic downturns and job competition sharpened hostility, while rapid urban growth made cultural difference more visible. Nativist violence targeted churches, neighborhoods, and political meetings.

The American Party, commonly called the Know-Nothing Party, grew in the 1850s from secret organizations. It favored longer naturalization periods and restrictions on immigrant officeholding. Its rise also reflected the collapse of the Whig Party, which left voters searching for new political homes. Nativism could temporarily hold together northern and southern voters, but the slavery crisis made that unity hard to sustain.

Nativism was a politics of power, not merely dislike of foreign customs. Extending the waiting period for citizenship would postpone voting. Barring foreign-born officeholders would narrow representation. Attacks on Catholic schooling would privilege a Protestant civic culture. Some immigrants answered by creating voting blocs and party alliances. Others resisted being treated as a single constituency. The same institutions nativists portrayed as evidence of foreign control could function for migrants as routes into local civic life.

See the history take shape

Use this lesson from Mr. Chet Laubach to review the period and its central historical problem. Pause when the video reaches the turning point named above.

Video: Mr. Laubach – APUSH – "Know Nothing Party" (the mid 1800s), Mr. Chet Laubach.

Check your understanding

  1. Know-Nothing support grew chiefly from alarm about
    1. antislavery organizing by northern Protestants.
    2. Mormon settlement in the western territories.
    3. Catholic immigration and growing electoral influence.
    4. federal sales of surveyed western land.
    5. temperance campaigns within established churches.
  2. A proposal to lengthen the naturalization period would most directly delay immigrants’
    1. admission at an Atlantic port.
    2. employment in an urban workshop.
    3. membership in a Catholic parish.
    4. eligibility for state militia service.
    5. access to citizenship-based voting and officeholding.
  3. Select all forces that encouraged nativism:
    1. anti-Catholicism,
    2. job anxiety,
    3. urban change,
    4. party collapse,
    5. universal prosperity.
  4. Explain why the slavery issue made a durable national nativist party difficult.

    Write a brief response using a named fact from the lesson.

Open the answers and reasoning
16.2-1. C. C names the paired religious and political anxieties at the center of Know-Nothing appeals. A describes an antislavery movement rather than nativism. B concerns western religious settlement but was not the party’s main immigration issue. D belongs to land policy. E could overlap with reform politics, yet temperance was not the defining Know-Nothing grievance.
16.2-2. E. E follows directly from the proposal because naturalization established the citizenship on which voting and most officeholding depended. A concerns immigration admission rather than naturalization. B was open to noncitizen workers. C did not depend on citizenship. D varied by state and circumstance but was not the principal target of a longer waiting period.
16.2-3. A, B, C, D. Anti-Catholicism, labor anxiety, urban change, and party collapse all encouraged nativism. E is excluded because universal prosperity neither existed nor explains anxiety politics.
16.2-4. Minimum complete response. Explain that a northern/southern nativist coalition lacked a common slavery position. Territorial crisis made sectional loyalty more important and fractured a party organized around immigration.

Independent preparation. CLEP is a registered trademark of the College Board, which does not endorse this lesson.

Effortless Math Team

Effortless Math Team

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