Abstract
To truly understand our country’s politics and presidential outcomes, it is important to examine past elections with similarly divisive campaign issues. The election of 2016 has brought into the open the feelings of anxiety, hatred and divisiveness towards Muslims and other minorities. Unfortunately, this chapter of our political history has been played out before in the 1856 presidential election. The American Party, or as is it better known the Know-Nothing Party, was anti-immigration and anti-Catholic. And leading the ticket in 1856 was a former president—Millard Fillmore.
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Notes
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- 3.
Desmond, 14.
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- 12.
The River Boyne was located about thirty miles north of Dublin, Ireland.
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- 23.
Lockwood.
- 24.
John Hancock Lee, The Origin and Progress of the American Party in Politics (Philadelphia: Elliott & Gihon, 1855), 229.
- 25.
- 26.
Ibid.
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Bud Kennedy, “Irish fought for Mexico? Yes—all in the name of St. Patrick.” Star-Telegram, March 16, 2017, http://www.star-telegram.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/bud-kennedy/article139012213.html.
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Volle, J.J. (2019). The Original Know-Nothings. In: Donald Trump and the Know-Nothing Movement. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78334-5_2
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