Washington sentinel. [volume] (City of Washington [D.C.]) 1853-1856, 1855-04-26
From the London Times, April g.
The United States Change Of Parties
The Know NOthings.


The Know NOthings.
The history of the formation, the develop
ment and the decline of political parties sug
gests one of the most curious and obscure pro-
bems in the annals Of free States. Who shall
say to what cause we are to attribute that
wave of public opinion which, like the tides
circling round the globe, rises, swells, and at
last breaks upon the shore? Sometimes for an
idea, sometimes for a leader, often by accident,
more rarely by intenton-here under the in
huence of religious enthusiasm, there for the
cause Of political independence one time
for the overthrow, at another for the mainten-
ance Of existing institutions-parties are insep-
arabic from the condition of political life; they
are perpetuated by tradition they are guarded
by honor, and they are rooted in human nature
itself. Yet it is hard to say where that power
originates which exercises so constant con-
troll over the opinions and actions of large
masses of mankind. Parties are themselves,
for the most part unconscious of the scource
of the impulse they obey, and they are more
habitually occupied by the excitement of the
contest than by the Importance of it's results
If these remarks apply to the parties of our
own country, where all such distinctions are of
slow growth and retain traditional character,
they are much more applicable to the political
condition of the United States, where the
growth and huctuation of parties are more
sudden, spontaneous, and uncontrolled The
institutions OF that country put up to election
every fourth year not only the Presidency Of the
United States, but the whole patronage Of the
Commonwealth. The organization of the
party is therefore constant occupation of the
American citizen, because he knows that sue
cess in party management places at his control
the destinies OF one of the first nations in the
world. Hence the rapid succession of parties
which have presented themselves under various
uncouth names as candidates for the favor of
the people of the United States-Locofocos
Landowners, and, at the present moment
Know nothings. We confess our inability to
trace these designations to their origin, but
even the derivation of the immortal names OF
Wing and Tory is fanciful and obscure; and
we are content to know something of the prin.
ciples they are intended to represent
We have read with great interest a State
paper, which appears to us to be drawn up with
ability and moderation, on behalf of the Know
nothings, or, as they profess to call themselves,
the American party, in the United States This
party has already obtained decisive ascen-
dancy in the Northern States of the Union, and
it is extremely probable that it will name the
successor of President PIERCE at the next Pre-
sidential election. But the principle on which
the party is formed is of far greater importance
than any personal consequences it may pro-
duce, for this principle may lead to permanent
results in the policy of the Union. The Ameri.
can party, indeed, places itself in opposition to
the rival claims of the old political leaders, and
1t boasts that its organization has been com.
pleted entirely without their assistance The
object of its founders has been to preserve their
designs from the assaults of other parties until
hnu nnnld rails 49, IL
this purpose they state. curiously enough, that
their organization is more or less secret in
action, and almost altogether secret in the
source from which it derives its counsel and
design" Yet, in spite of this mystery which
would seem so little adapted to the political
habits of the United States, the party has un-
questionably gained ground with singular rap
idlty. 1t must therefore represent an opinion
shared by large masses of the American people.
Its main object is declared to be to reassert the
original purpose of the Union, to revive the
national spirit of the country, to crush those
factions which have converted party warfare
into mere struggle for the power Of dispens.
ing patronage, and, above all, to resist the in
crease OF foreign influences in the United States.
This last motive is more especially the pc
culiar and immediate object of the Know-noth-
ing party. They state that not much less than
nall million strangers are driven annually by
poverty or misrule to swell the population Of
the United States; and that, although this ac.
QUESTION of labor is in some respect useful to
the community, yet that these immigrants are
ignorant Of the institutions, the laws, and even
the language of the country, and animated by
spirit very different from that of American
citizens These persons are, however, very
speedily invested with the franchise and the
exercise of political power
This immigration furnishes what may, with
out much exaggeration of phrase, be called the
distinct estate in our republic. Its ever.swel-
ling tide is visible in every community. IT is
banded into combinations more or less apart
from our long-known and familiar masses of
native citizens, by ties of foreign kindred, by
unforgotten and ever-cherished nationalities
and by sympathies alien to the spirit which
alone sustains our peculiar, temperate, and
complicated system Of freedom. Worse than
this it has caught the notice and stimulated
the craft of selfish political aspirants and dema-
gogues, who have too easily found it plant
resource for party use, and who have cajoled,
fattered, and seduced it into the ranks Of par.
tisan strife, and thus impaired TO it conse-
quence and an influence most powerful to aid
preverse ambition, but utterly powerless to
accomplish any honest end for which the
highest prerogatives Of citizenship were origin
ally designed" To this we may add, that il
exercises an undue and almost exclusive in.
huence over the American press, that it is al.
ways endeayoring to embroil the United States.
for its own sinister purposes, with the European
powers, and that it is led by the renegades, the
sympathizers and the annexationsts of every
cline who have sought refuge beyond the
Atlantic.
But the views of the American party do not
stop here. They observe that very large por.
ton of the ANIMAL immigration belongs to the
Church of Rome-a body regarded with dis
trust by the greater number of the American
people, protesting at least moral allegiance
" foreign and absolute power, and organized
in peculiar manner for the promotion of Ro.
man Catholic objects at the expense of those
very liberties which these persons exercise and
eujoy. The American party, therefore, pro.
claims that It takes its stand against the poiti-
cal action of the Roman Catholic Church in
the United States, not from intolerance of the
doctrines of that faith, but from conviction
that the tendancy Of that church is to embody