Lincoln, Obama, and Know Nothings

The Missouri Compromise of 1820 divided the States along a line running east and west—the 36° 30' parallel--to delineate between the agricultural, pro-slavery South, and the anti-slavery, industrial North. The compromise lasted until 1854, when the Kansas-Nebraska Act stipulated that settlers would decide whether their States should be free or slave.

It was a time of political reorganization. A Know Nothing Party was formed to express anger at the new immigrants, particularly Irish Catholics. Out of the turmoil, the Republican Party emerged, which elected Abraham Lincoln in 1860. The long-term result was that Republicans pretty much controlled politics in the North, and nationally, until 1932, when the Great Depression overran them. Democrats dominated Southern States.

Today, the party of Abraham Lincoln dominates the South, and Democrats have moved north. Even more curiously, it is the Democrats who have elected a Black man to the Presidency; a man whom many compare with Abraham Lincoln. We still have our Know Nothings who express fear and anger at our newer immigrants, not so much from Ireland, today, as from Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Tea Party Republicans, who absurdly charge that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, are this generation's Know Nothings.

I am not sure what to make of all this tumbling around of politics, and racism, and religious hostility, except for this: it is nice to figure out where the Know Nothings went.

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