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- #61
After 1856 the "Know Nothings" evolved into the pro-slavery American Party which in turn morphed into the Democrat party.
Stop right there, because that's multi-level horse shit, and I shall now proceed to prove it such.
Number one: "the "Know Nothings" evolved into the pro-slavery American Party"
- -- the "Know Nothings" were already the "Native American Party", their official name, "know nothing" being a nickname --- one which was already explained in POST ONE, and simply dropped the "Native". "Know Nothing" was never an official name. Actually it began in 1843 as the American Republican Party.
Number two: "the pro-slavery American Party"
- --- that party was not "pro-slavery". It ignored the whole issue and focused on its xenophobia. Ignoring the elephant in the room of slavery and hoping it would go away was a failure of many a pre-Civil War party including the Democrats and the Whigs.... which collapsed on its own failure to come to terms with the same question. The nativistic bigot wigs became Know Nothings, while the abolitionist ones became Republicans, a party founded in the same era (specifically 1854). Including Lincoln.
-- in actual fact, the closest the KN party had to an immediate successor would have been the Constitutional Union Party, which ran one John Bell for President in 1860, who came in third behind Lincoln and Breckinridge and ahead of the Democrat Douglas. That party also attempted to ignore the slavery issue, and it too disappeared after 1860. In the bigger picture the ideological successor to the KN party would be, as already noted, the 20th century Klan, which preached virtually word-for-word the same "100% Americanism" doctrine as the KNs and railed against immigrants.
Number three: "... which in turn morphed into the Democrat [sic] party"
- --- The Democratic Party (there is still no such thing as a "Democrat Party" and there never has been) -- HAD ALREADY EXISTED since 1828. It's the oldest political party in the world, which is also why the term "GOP" is a misnomer. In fact on the day of the Louisville election referenced in the OP story, the opposition to the Know Nothings, whose thugs commandeered the polls --- were Democrats. And that's who the persecuted Germans and Irish were coming out to vote for. A party that was, in 1855, already a quarter-century old and firmly established.
--- in fact the following year another riot broke out during the mayoral election in Baltimore, AGAIN with Know Nothings squaring off against Democrats.
Number four:
- -----
You sir are a fucking moron.
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