I read an opinion piece in a leading New York newspaper that attributed the calamitous presidential election loss of one party’s nominee to the sinister tactics of the opposing party, which had enlisted vast numbers of the 
No, this editorial is not hot off of any press in 2024, but instead saw publication late in 1844! And the author is a no pundit on the right venting in an op-ed, but rather the esteemed Horace Greeley, a reformist who was then-editor of the Whig-friendly New-York Daily Tribune. That Greeley’s grievances strike such familiar chords one hundred eighty years later is illustrative of an unsettling but familiar constant in American history: a nation comprised almost entirely of immigrants has with some consistency frequently demonstrated a hostility towards the next generation of immigrants. This odd streak of nativism dates back to the very dawn of the Republic with the “Alien and Sedition Acts” of 1798, enacted only ten years after the Constitution was ratified and championed by none other than Alexander Hamilton, who himself was born in the West Indies! And long after Greeley was gone, Woodrow Wilson warned in 1903 that “there came multitudes of men of the lowest class . . . as if the countries of the south of Europe were disburdening themselves of the more sordid and hapless elements of their population.” As recently as 1960, Rev. Norman Vincent Peale assailed the candidacy of John F. Kennedy in apocalyptic terms: “Faced with the election of a Catholic, our culture is at stake.” In this context, the uncomfortable truth is that when Donald Trump branded Mexicans “rapists” and called for a Muslim ban, he was operating within a reluctantly acknowledged time-honored American tradition, even if he voiced it in a tone more vulgar than customary.
But never in our history did nativism—and the forces aligned against it—have as much outsize consequence for American politics and policy as it did in the antebellum and the Civil War era, as becomes abundantly clear in the splendid new book by acclaimed Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer, Brought Forth on This Continent: Abraham Lincoln and American Immigration [2024]. In these pages Holzer, author of more than fifty books and winner of the prestigious Lincoln Prize, takes a fresh look at the critical if too often overlooked significance of the Native American “Know-Nothing” Party in antebellum politics as the Whigs came apart and the new Republican Party was born. At the same time, he widens the lens on the familiar “benefit vs. burden” debate over immigration to establish with some conviction that in this particular moment in history immigrant minorities proved not only key cohorts of electoral contests but, upon the onset of secession and war, surprisingly essential to our national survival.
First, Holzer takes us back to a time when the most despised immigrant population was the Irish: desperately poor, largely illiterate, and Roman Catholic—a faith that was an anathema to Protestant America. Their numbers increased exponentially after 1844 with the devastating potato famine that claimed a million dead to starvation and sent millions more fleeing the country. They were largely unwelcome in America, even as their addition to the labor force boosted American business. There was the typical charge against the Irish of putting the native born out of work, but like most immigrants then and now, they flocked to low-paid menial jobs most Americans did not want, and because of an overheated demand, their presence actually generated a degree of upward mobility for those already employed, particularly in places like Boston brutally focused upon wage labor in factories and mills. But, then and now, the perceived threat was all that really mattered.
Politically, that perceived threat spawned an unlikely coalition of the disaffected, including many former Whigs, to form secret societies to resist the influx of immigrants that quickly evolved into the Native American Party, popularly dubbed the “Know-Nothings,” which briefly but mightily shook up the established political order. That the Whigs as a national party eventually imploded over the issue of slavery overlooks nuance in other factors such as the Know-Nothings, which contributed to their slow unraveling. At the same time, the Know-Nothings’ advertised hostility to the Irish sent them into the welcoming arms of the Democratic Party, which happily targeted them as a dependable long-term voting bloc. This was the conundrum Greeley, a steadfast Whig, opined about in the Tribune.
The other significant foreign born demographic was German, Protestant and Catholic, many whom had fled Europe after the failed liberal revolutions of 1848. While wary of Whigs who sometimes danced in the same circles as Know-Nothings, their antislavery principles could not abide a close coupling with Democrats closely allied with southern slave power interests. Germans, for a variety of factors, also seemed to assimilate more rapidly, and their votes remained valuable if up for grabs. All of this occurred against a dramatic backdrop that saw national unity crumbling, Whiggery gradually going extinct, and the creation of the Republican Party.
Enter Lincoln, a longtime Whig unfriendly to nativism, who was also a brilliant politician capable of sensing and seizing opportunities. Armed with reliable antislavery credentials but well-distanced from the radicalism attached to abolitionists, Lincoln privately denounced the Know-Nothings while publicly withholding judgment, and championed “free soil” opportunities in the territories equally attractive to the native and the foreign born. Shrewdly navigating a precarious center that found competing as well as conflicting interests to his left and right, Lincoln recruited all-comers, reconciling nearly all save those that would countenance the further spread of slavery. In the end, Lincoln managed to find wide support among immigrants, especially the Germans, without alienating former Know-Nothings, a notable achievement too often overlooked in the literature. But none of it was by accident: leaders of the German-American community that Lincoln courted worked tirelessly to drive voters to the polls. The breadth of Holzer’s scholarship and his expert analysis are perhaps best showcased in this portion of the narrative as he explores how the subtleties of Lincoln’s character, coupled with his strategic instincts, reinforced his political acumen.
With secession and Civil War, of course, the focus shifted from ballots to bullets, and here immigrants—citizens and non-citizens alike—proved vital to the struggle. The foreign born filled the ranks. With their adopted nation under threat, the Irish, who had voted for Lincoln in far smaller numbers than their German counterparts, nevertheless sent more than 150,000 men to the front. Still, the largest ethnicity belonged to the Germans, who contributed well over 200,000 soldiers—about ten percent of the fighting force! But the new president also put his thumb on the scale: in the scramble for political appointments Lincoln astutely rewarded those with the most clout, including German-Americans who campaigned for him. And this type of favor was even more pronounced as new generals were commissioned, most famously with Franz Sigel, whose ability to inspire enthusiasm in the ranks vastly exceeded his talents on the battlefield. Sadly, he was not alone. In fact, the ineptitude of many of Lincoln’s political generals—both native and foreign born—plagued him throughout the conflict, but yet remained essential to recruitment efforts as the war dragged on.
Immigration was crucial elsewhere, as well. From the time the first shots were fired, the Confederacy was able to field a larger percentage of men with muskets than the United States because they could rely on the enslaved as a massive labor force, both at home and at the front; we now know that thousands of “camp slaves” accompanied rebel armies for the duration of the war. The north had no such luxury. So in addition to their service in uniform, the Union counted on immigrants behind the lines for production of materiel as well as to take the places of those at the front in factories, mills, and beyond. At the same time, acts fostering internal improvements, long blocked by the south, were now making their way through Congress. Lincoln, a man of vision whose prescience often far exceeded that of any of his contemporaries, recognized the urgency in expanding the population to meet accelerating demands for labor, just as the nation confronted an existential threat of extinction. Of course, with no end to the war in sight, more soldiers would be needed too. Thus Lincoln became the first president to sponsor and sign legislation that encouraged immigration.
Many nationalities other than Irish and German deserve their due, and the author touches upon them, but he rightly focuses his attention on the most consequential groups. Yet, he does carve out space to discuss Jews in America, a minority both within and outside of the immigrant community, whom Lincoln generally treated with favor, for personal as well as political reasons. While Lincoln was sometimes given to the telling of ethnic jokes, as Holzer recounts, he genuinely seems to have lacked many—if certainly not all—of the prejudices common to his time.
If I was to find fault, I thought there were far too many pages devoted to chronicling the series of German-American generals who consistently let Lincoln down on the battlefield, the only drag to an otherwise fast-moving narrative. At the same time, I craved a deeper dive into what drove fierce German antislavery sentiments to begin with, something that made them natural allies to the Republican cause. But these are, I suppose, just quibbles. It is, after all, a fine work, and it more than earns a place on your Civil War bookcase.
I came to this book in an unusual fashion. I unexpectedly ran into Harold Holzer in the lobby of an eighteenth century inn in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts. We had met before, at the Civil War Institute Summer Conference at Gettysburg College, and at other events. I was on my way to see blues guitarist-vocalist extraordinaire Samantha Fish in Great Barrington; Harold was returning from a presentation of this very book at a local library. We exchanged pleasantries and moved on. The next day, my wife and I stopped in at bookstore in a nearby town and I asked about Holzer’s book. The owner of the bookstore suddenly became quite animated. Did I know Harold, he wanted to know … While I chatted with him, I pretended not to notice my wife surreptitiously purchasing Brought Forth on This Continent, which two weeks later showed up in my Easter Basket. (Yes, we still do Easter Baskets in my house!)
I was most grateful to receive this book because antebellum nativism falls into my zone of interest. Some years ago, I even published a journal article about the weird confluence of events that in 1855 had the Massachusetts legislature controlled by Know-Nothings pass the very first bill mandating school desegregation in American history! I have also spent decades studying Lincoln and the Civil War, so Holzer’s book checked all the boxes. As it turned out, I was not disappointed. This is an outstanding work that succeeds not only in recapturing critical moments in American history, but in restoring the relevance of immigration to the survival and success of the Republic. Given the dynamics of this election year, that comes perhaps not a moment too soon.
Link to Greeley, cited above: New-York Daily Tribune, November 11, 1844
Link to my journal article: Strange Bedfellows: Nativism, Know-Nothings, African-Americans and School Desegregation in Antebellum Massachusetts, by Stan Prager
More on the Know-Nothings: Review of: The Know-Nothing Party in Massachusetts: The Rise and Fall of a People’s Movement, by John R. Mulkern
More on CWI: Civil War Institute at Gettysburg Summer Conference 2024 – Regarp Book Blog
