 |
| In “The Spirit of America,” (1974), Norman Rockwell depicts a nation made from many lives and histories, unified not by bloodlines but by a common belief in the American idea. (Courtesy of Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, MA) |
Abraham Lincoln’s relationship with the nativist Know Nothing movement in the 1850s is one of the most revealing tests of his political and moral character. He faced a dilemma that would have broken a lesser statesman: how to build a broad anti‑slavery coalition without capitulating to the rising tide of anti‑immigrant nativism.
Lincoln’s solution was a blend of strategic restraint and unwavering principle.
Publicly: Discipline and Focus
Lincoln understood that many former Whigs — voters he desperately needed to stop the spread of slavery — had drifted into Know Nothing lodges. Attacking them outright would fracture the fragile anti‑Kansas Nebraska Act coalition he was trying to build.
So he did something remarkable:
He refused to take the bait.
Rather than engage nativism directly, Lincoln kept his public message laser‑focused on the moral fallacy of the Kansas–Nebraska Act. He attacked it because it replaced a moral principle with a political mechanism.
The Act said:
Let the settlers decide whether slavery is allowed — “popular sovereignty”.
Lincoln said:
No human being has the right to vote on another human being’s freedom. [1]
That was the heart of his argument.
He believed you cannot use a vote — or any political mechanism — to deny another person’s rights.
He welcomed anti‑slavery Know Nothing voters into the emerging Republican coalition but without allowing any anti‑immigrant planks into the party platform.
This was not moral compromise. It was strategic triage.
Privately: Moral Outrage
Behind closed doors, Lincoln’s letters show how deeply he despised Know Nothing ideology. In an 1855 letter to his friend Joshua Speed, he wrote one of the most searing condemnations of nativism in American political history:
How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes be in favor of degrading classes of white people? … When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read ‘all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics.’ When it comes to this 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. [2]
This was Lincoln without the political filter — morally furious, uncompromising, and clear‑eyed about the stakes.
1859: The Line He Would Not Cross
Lincoln’s resolve was tested when Massachusetts passed the “Two‑Year Amendment,” delaying voting rights for naturalized citizens. Some Illinois Republicans wondered whether they should adopt similar measures to court nativist votes.
Lincoln’s answer was unequivocal.
In a public letter to German‑American leader Theodore Canisius, he rejected the amendment outright. Any policy that degraded immigrants, he argued, violated the spirit of American institutions.
I have some little notoriety for commiserating the oppressed condition of the negro; and I should be strangely inconsistent if I would favor any project for curtailing the existing rights of white men, even though born in different lands, and speaking different languages from myself. [3]
This was the moment he drew a bright line:
Anti‑slavery and anti‑immigrant politics were incompatible.
The Lesson
Lincoln’s handling of the Know Nothings shows a rare combination of political realism and moral clarity. He refused to let nativism define the Republican Party, even when it would have been politically convenient.
He understood something essential:
A nation built on the Declaration of Independence cannot define belonging by ancestry.
Lincoln’s America was not a closed inheritance. It was a shared allegiance — an “electric cord,” as he later put it, connecting anyone who embraced the principle that all people are created equal.
That belief remains one of his most enduring gifts to the American story.
From the archives of Abraham Lincoln, Storyteller.
Mac
Works Cited
Primary Sources
[1] Lincoln, Abraham. Speech at Peoria, Illinois, October 16, 1854. In Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 2, ed. Roy P. Basler.
[2] Lincoln, Abraham. Letter to Joshua F. Speed, August 24, 1855. In Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 2, ed. Roy P. Basler.
[3] Lincoln, Abraham. Letter to Theodore Canisius, May 17, 1859. In Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 3, ed. Roy P. Basler.
Secondary Sources
Foner, Eric. The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery. W.W. Norton, 2010.
Gienapp, William E. The Origins of the Republican Party, 1852–1856. Oxford University Press, 1987.
McPherson, James M. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. Oxford University Press, 1988.
Anbinder, Tyler. Nativism and Slavery: The Northern Know Nothings and the Politics of the 1850s. Oxford University Press, 1992.
Holzer, Harold. Lincoln and the Immigrant. Southern Illinois University Press, 2015.
No comments:
Post a Comment