Know Nothing Party

“ "I know nothing that I may say can influence you," he said. "You have no souls to be influenced. You are spineless, flaccid things. You pompously call yourselves Republicans and Democrats. There is no Republican Party. There is no Democratic Party. There are no Republicans nor Democrats in this House. You are lick-spittlers and panderers, the creatures of the Plutocracy. ”

“ Today our country is being psychologically divided by the confusion and the suspicions that are bred in the United States Senate to spread like cancerous tentacles of "know nothing, suspect everything" attitudes. Today we have a Democratic Administration that has developed a mania for loose spending and loose programs. History is repeating itself -- and the Republican Party again has the opportunity to emerge as the champion of unity and prudence. ”

“ Their consequent declaration that they knew nothing about it gave the society its popular name of Know Nothings. It accepted the name of the American Party. Its design was to oppose the easy naturalization of foreigners, and to aid the election of native-born citizens to office. Its nominations were made by secret conventions of delegates from the various lodges, and were voted for by all members under penalty of expulsion in case of refusal. ”

“ I do not believe that party programmes of the highest consequence to the political life of the state and the nation ought to be thrust to one side and hopelessly embarrassed for long periods together by making a political issue of a great question that is essentially non- political, non-partisan, moral and social in its nature. ”

“ And surely it is a case for congratulation, when some great, exciting question breaks out and jars these conventional idols, and so sweeps and shatters these party organizations and turns them topsy-turvy, that a man is shaken out of his harness, does not know exactly what party he does belong to, and begins to feel that he has a soul of his own. I am not denying the use and the necessity of parties as instruments, but protest against them as ends, especially when principle is smothered under their platforms, and they absorb the moral personality of a man. ”

“ But the questions involved are social and moral, not political, and are not susceptible of being made parts of a party programme. Whenever they have been made the subject matter of party contests, they have cut the lines of party organization and party action athwart, to the utter confusion of political action in every other field. They have thrown every other question, however important, into the background and have made constructive party action impossible for long years together. ”

“ We know better, and hence we buy the Radical vote by a little coquetting with communism, and the model working-man and the rebel by an occasional gaol-delivery, and the Papist by a sop to the Holy Father. Bear in mind, Dick—and it is the grand secret of political life—it takes all sort of people to make a ‘party.’ When you have thoroughly digested this aphorism, you are fit to start in the world. ”

“ The revolutionary party has its own policy and its own programme. It cannot for obvious reasons divulge all its secrets. But when it will become quite sure that the government happens to know more than our own people, then the public will also be informed of its plan and methods without any hesitation at will. ”

“ Democrats in 1992 hold nothing more important for America than an economy that offers growth and jobs for all.
President Bush, with no interest in domestic policy, has given America the slowest economic growth, the slowest income growth, and the slowest jobs growth since the Great Depression. And the American people know the long Bush recession reflects not just a business cycle, but a long-term slide, so that even in a fragile recovery we're sinking. ”

“ We mean to be perfectly understood on this point, and therefore openly disclaim all steel-traps, all principle, as it is called—all party—all politics. Our only guide shall be good, sound, practical common sense, applicable to the business and bosoms of men engaged in every-day life. We shall support no party—be the organ of no faction or coterie, and care nothing for any election or any candidate from president down to a constable. ”

“ It clearly implies that the community is divided by a difference of opinion, not only on ordinary matters and points of current administration, but on some question of fundamental character and of paramount importance. Nothing less can make the submission of the individual intellect and conscience to party discipline rational or moral. In the absence of such a question, party is faction, the ruin of all commonwealths. ”

“ Every hint at the possibility of organizing a new party on the part of a Republican or a Democrat has been treated on both sides as a sort of high treason. I will at once confess that, whatever my views concerning its practicability may be, I do not look upon the idea as anything particularly criminal. I am even convinced that things have a tendency in that direction. But I know also that parties cannot be manufactured to order; they spring and grow into being as new issues arise or old ones press into the foreground and give a powerful impulse to the popular mind. ”

“ It shows it was not the result of political influence or party, but was the natural outgrowth of official rectitude and just dealing toward all. When a man comes before me to make affidavit or to acknowledge a deed, I recognize no party, no friend. ”

“ And that the Democratic party, as a party, is as deadly a poison as arsenic we know to be true, because it has killed its thousands and tens of thousands, than which we want no other or better proof than is furnished by the preceding chapters of this volume. ”

“ Why should they not do the same in politics, supposing politics to be a matter not of passion and ambition, but of reason and of the public good? This is the answer to the argument on the side of party that nothing can be carried without combination. It can hardly be necessary to meet the argument that political truth can only be hammered out by the constant collision of parties. With regard to all other subjects it is supposed that while free discussion is conducive to the discovery of the truth, party feeling and subserviency to party are most adverse to it. ”

“ For a generation it will be annihilated by contempt. But a community without a republican party must be one without ideals and without any aspirations towards truth in its political life—and in other respects as well! ”

“ Parties are also founded on instincts, and have better guides to their own humble aims than the sagacity of their leaders. They have nothing perverse in their origin, but rudely mark some real and lasting relation. We might as wisely reprove the east wind, or the frost, as a political party, whose members, for the most part, could give no account of their position, but stand for the defence of those interests in which they find themselves. ”

“ MY PARLIAMENTARY ELECTION The Party System has its critics; it will always have its critics. But you will not abolish it; you can do so only by being false to your own principles, and forming an anti-Party Party.—Lord Hopedale.
I had not, up to this time, taken much part in public affairs even on a small scale. ”

“ But that party men who, being neither bosses nor heelers, have no other interest in their parties than the accomplishment of certain public objects to be brought about by organized effort should doggedly follow the behests of the party bosses, even when the slightest reflection must convince them that by doing so they not only do not serve the public interest but will hurt the true interests of their respective parties, can be explained only on the ground that the mere name of party exercises upon their minds a dangerously confusing fascination. ”

“ And I assure you, sir, within the last past fortnight I have had an opportunity to ask scores of democrats, serious men, what are to-day the principles of the democratic party, and that question was to them a serious puzzle.
No sir, as a man, who has no principles, cannot be a moral man, so a party, that have no principles cannot be an honest party. It cannot escape from the grasp of corruption, for, if a political organization has no higher object, it will but serve the ambition and avarice of the few, who are the shrewdest and the most influential among them. ”

“ If this minority is actually conscious, if it is able to draw the masses after it, if it shows itself capable of replying to every question on the agenda list of the political day, it actually constitutes a party. ”

“ Of the final issue I have no doubt; but no man can tell what shall come to pass in the mean time. We see that political parties in the State are snapped asunder: whether the national party shall not be broken up, no man can say. ”

“ He tells you that in a free country there must be political parties and that, without them, the government cannot be carried on. This you do not deny.—He goes on telling you, that without the distribution of patronage in the shape of offices among its workers, a political party cannot exist. ”

“ My mind is appalled at the thought of a political party having control of all the details that go to make up the sum total of our lives. Think of it for an instant, that the party in power shall have all authority to dictate the kind of books that shall be used in our schools and universities, government officials editing, printing, and circulating our literature, histories, magazines and press, to say nothing of the thousand and one activities of life that a people engage in, in a civilized society. ”

“ We too must pause in every keen emergency to cajole, to persuade, to placate, to reconcile conflicting interests, to humour conflicting opinions,—termed by those who hold them, "principles." We too must forever bear in mind the political party which is in power, and the political party which waits to get into power ”

“ I'm too old now to go to school about party tactics and politics; I'm too stubborn, besides, to yield up a single conviction for the sake of unity with a party,—so much for my unfitness for public life. ”

“ While boasting of popular government, we suffer ourselves to be led about by self-seeking politicians like a blind man by a scurvy poodle; we made partisanship paramount to patriotism—have reserved the poet's line, and now
"All are for a party and none are for the state." ”

“ I have said that what are called politics are out of fashion; there is no public man a jot more popular than another; nobody cares about parties, for there is no party distinguished by any peculiar badge of principle, with a distinct colour, and standing in open and defined antagonism to any other; none which has any great object to advance—constitutional, political, or commercial—in opposition to another party ranged against it. ”

“ We wish to turn our backs on all sectional parties, and on all parties groping in the moonlight of the past, and to ally ourselves with any party that will be animated with the spirit of civil and religious toleration, broad and elevated patriotism, not bounded by State lines, and inspired with pride and an abiding faith in the genius of free institutions. ”

“ You know the more you read and observe about this Politics thing, you got to admit that each party is worse than the other. The one that’s out always looks the best. ”

“ The brutal cynicism with which certain Republican Senators and Representatives kick aside the solemn pledges of their party contained in its national platforms for a quarter of a century — pledges upon which the party has constantly asked for the votes of the people — shocks the popular conscience. ”

“ He could silence an opponent with a look of scorn, or hush the whole House with a single word. But he never stooped to the arts by which men form a political party, and at the height of his power his personal following hardly numbered half a dozen members. ”

“ What if a party clique utters sentiments adverse to our own on the never ceasing topic of political policy? Is it not the expression of a mind or a hundred minds forming a portion of the great body politic, of which we ourselves are a part, and are they not entitled to their opinion and modes of expressing it, providing it be done with decorum and with a proper respect for the opinions of their adversaries? ”

“ Though I am a party man, to me parties are valuable only as they subserve the ends of good government. When they persistently violate the fundamental rights of the humblest and weakest in the land, I scout them, despise them, and leave them.
We boast of our riches, power, and glory as a nation, and we have reason to do so. ”

“ The old Whigs who had so recently stepped from their "finality" platform, could not be unitedly rallied, and the Democratic bolters were only half converted. In my own State the opposition to the Democracy repudiated even the name Republican, and entered the field as "the People's party." It was a combination of weaknesses, instead of a union of forces. All the Fillmore Know- Nothings and Silver-Grey Whigs of the State were recognized as brethren. ”

“ In the second place, is party spirit really so rampant among our people as to make non-partisan municipal government impracticable? That it is the ruling motive of a good many people in their political action cannot be denied. But is it the ruling motive of people also with regard to matters outside of its natural sphere to such an extent that every effort to make the citizens see their true interests as to municipal affairs would appear hopeless? To affirm this would be equivalent to saying that the great majority of our people lack not only public spirit, but also ordinary intelligence. ”