Xenophobia In The 19th Century

America in the mid-19th century was a powder keg waiting to explode. The division of culture between the North and South was at an all-time high and in the early 1840’s the population of the United States was drastically changing. Settlers were rushing westward to form new territories while Immigrants from Europe were leaving their countries to settle in the United States. This movement of people into and around the United States led to the furthering of disunion and political developments, because it furthered xenophobic ideologies and it perpetuated political violence. The population of mid-19th century America was predominantly made up of the white ruling class, poor/working class whites, and enslaved African Americans. In the South, most …show more content…
The current political parties at the time did not make xenophobia to be a primary issue. The Know Nothing party was created as a response to anti-immigration sentiments. As The New York Times stated, the Know Nothing party was founded upon “… such a movement rests upon no broader basis, than the hatred of men because they were born on a different soil, and still less because they hold a religious faith different from our own….” . Furthermore, the Know Nothing party swept through American Politics like a wildfire as stated by The New York Times “… what this movement has done within the space of a few months, in the most intelligent and high-minded population of the Union. Without presses, without electioneering, with no prestige or power, it has completely overthrown and swamped the two old historic parties of the country, and now sways public sentiment even where it has not yet absorbed political power…” . The Know Nothing party effectively made xenophobia a national virtue. The mass influx of immigrants into the United States allowed for further disunion, because a political party formed around the normalization of xenophobic ideas. In the mid-19th