Excerpt from Know-Nothingism in Rhode Island During the years 1854 - 3 5 5 56, when the kansas-nebraska strife was absorbing the attention of the whole country, obliterating party lines and alienating the fraternal feeling between the North and the South, a new political organization was swiftly and secretly formed; its spread over the country was magical and its strength, as demonstrated at the polls, was wonderful. The party was quickly formed, swept the North, and dissolved, on account of the absence of cohesive principles in its various stages and in the different portions of the country it bore different names, but that by which it was most generally known is know-nothing, from the fact that its members always asserted that they knew nothing not only of the principles but also of the existence of such a party. When it had reached such a prominence as to make a de nial of its existence absurd, its partizans called it the Ameri can Party, and in certain States we find promulgated orders and announcements of The Sons of '76, and The Order of the star-spangled Banner. In the adoption of such names two motives seemed to prevail to impress upon all that they were radically and enthusiastically American, and to induce as many as possible to join their ranks by the use of patriotic or quasi-patriotic appellations. This same spirit, we shall see, manifests itself in other ways, and it is to be recollected that they very frequently in communications and orders signed themselves Sam, on account, it has been said, of the name of Uncle Sam given to our government. Like wise in their campaigns they made frequent use of a sup posed command given by Washington on an important occa sion, Let none but Americans be placed on guard to-night. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.