NATIVISM

The United States of America: Studies in Conflict and Consensus

NATIVISM: A history of immigration-control in the United States.

Although the United States has always portrayed itself as a sanctuary for the world's victims of oppression and poverty, anti-immigrant sentiment - known as nativism - has pervaded most of the nation's history. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when much of America contained few inhabitants, colonists sought desperately to attract immigrants from Europe. In fact, the Declaration of Independence complained that King George III had "endeavored to prevent the population of these States" by "obstructing the Laws of Naturalization of Foreigners" and by "refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither."

America's outlook toward immigration began to change after the Revolution. Realizing that most immigrants supported Thomas Jefferson's Republican faction, Federalists in Congress attempted to suppress the newcomers' political activity in 1798 by passing the Alien Acts, which curtailed the rights of unnaturalized immigrants. In the 1830s, however, nativists began focusing their attacks on Catholic immigrants, asserting that America's republican form of government could not be sustained with a large Catholic population. These Protestants insisted that republican governments require a "virtuous, educated, and independent" electorate, and they perceived Catholic immigrants to be

superstitious, ignorant, and dominated by their priests. Such anti-Catholicism had a long history in America. The Puritans had journeyed across the ocean to escape the Church of England's "Romish" trappings, and southern colonists were known to have enjoyed a parlor game called "Break the Pope's Neck." So, when pamphleteers such as Samuel F. B. Morse began linking immigration, which Americans had considered beneficial, with Catholicism, which many saw as a threat, American nativism found a larger audience.

Early nativists tried to transform their crusade into a political movement, but their principles initially influenced the workplace more than the ballot box. Artisans and laborers often complained that immigrants depressed wages because the newcomers would work for less pay than native-born workers. The frequency with which employers used immigrants to replace striking workingmen only deepened the animosity toward newcomers. Employers also practiced nativism: many help-wanted advertisements of the period ended with the "No foreigners Need Apply."

Aided by this persistent economic nativism, anti-immigrant sentiment soon entered politics. One of the first nativist political organizations, New York's Native American Democratic Association, nominated inventor Samuel F. B. Morse for mayor in 1836. He captured only 6 percent of the vote, but in 1844 a new nativist group, the American Republican party, elected six congressmen and dozens of local officials in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. Nativism reached its political zenith ten years later with the meteoric rise of the "Know-Nothings." This secret fraternal organization, which sought to curtail the political power of Catholics and immigrants, probably derived its name from its members' pledge to feign ignorance if queried about the group.

The dramatic rise in immigration resulting from European circumstances at the time fueled the animosity between Protestants and Catholics over many things such as the use of the Protestant King James Bible in public schools, etc. By the end of 1855, the American party (as the Know-Nothings renamed themselves) had carried elections in a dozen states and elected more than one hundred congressmen. Many believed they would elect the next president, but divisions over the slavery issue drove many of its northern members into the new Republican party. Know-Nothings tried to attract new members by promising that the group would promote sectional harmony, but their 1856 presidential candidate, Millard Fillmore, carried only Maryland. This embarrassing performance hastened the party's decline, and by 1860, the Know-Nothings had disappeared.

Although no nativist political organization comparable in size to the Know-Nothings appeared after the Civil War, nativists often found that the existing parties were willing to enact their proposals. A central item on the Know-Nothings' agenda, a law banning the immigration of paupers and convicts, passed Congress in 1882. Registration and literacy tests for voters (which Know-Nothings had supported as a way to prevent immigrant voting) also became common.

By the late nineteenth century, however, antiradicalism had replaced anti-Catholicism as the cornerstone of nativism. Some believed that immigrants brought European radicalism with them to America, and they especially blamed the newcomers for fomenting the labor unrest that characterized much of the period. The role immigrants played in the communist, socialist, and anarchist movements also helped convince many Americans that unless the country restricted immigration, radicals from abroad might soon dominate the United States.

Although the first laws enacted to restrict immigration affected only Asians, efforts to restrict non-Asian newcomers soon gained momentum as well. Northwestern Europe had provided most of America's immigrants in the nineteenth century, but by 1900 a majority hailed from Russia, Poland, Hungary, and Italy. Reinforcing their racial prejudices by misinterpreting findings made in the new field of genetics, many Americans concluded that immigrants from these countries lacked the intelligence and motivation that purportedly characterized northwestern Europeans, so the "new immigration" provided renewed impetus to the nativist movement.

The aftermath of World War I gave restrictionists more ammunition. Fear of foreign agitators (especially communists) reached epidemic proportions and culminated in the red scare that swept the United States. The Ku Klux Klan also revived at this time, and the group's new agenda, which added anti-Catholicism, anti-Semitism, and antiforeignism to the traditional hatred of blacks, attracted 5 million members. The labor movement called for immigration restriction as well, arguing that the newcomers' willingness to work for substandard wages depressed the earnings of all laborers. Finally, many feared that with immigration having fallen off because of the war, millions of refugees would now flock to America and spoil the prosperity of the Roaring Twenties.

Congress responded to these pressures by passing the National Origins Act (1924), which reflected prevailing prejudices by setting immigration quotas that blatantly discriminated against some countries over others. For example, the law (as eventually amended) permitted 65,721 immigrants from Great Britain annually, but only 2,712 from the Soviet Union. Asians were almost completely excluded. The movement to restrict immigration, initiated nearly a century earlier, had finally achieved its goal.

It is difficult to assess the extent to which nativism still pervades American society. Organized nativism as epitomized by the Know-Nothings or the Klan has no great following. Yet this may reflect the lack of large-scale immigration to the United States, because the quota system set up in the 1920s remains intact today, and attempts to prevent illegal immigration reflect public support for this system. Contemporary outbreaks of hostility toward Asian-Americans, motivated in part by the impression that Japan has surpassed the United States economically, also indicate that nativism continues to influence American thought. Whatever the case, it is clear that though immigration has played an important role in almost every period of American history, nativism has pervaded its past with equal persistence.

Questions:

1. Why do you suppose King George III had controlled the number of immigrants to the American colonies?

2. What reasons did the Protestants use to convince people to help stop Catholics from immigrating to the US?

3. Why were the new immigrants viewed negatively in the economic field?

4. How was the movement of Nativism successful in the periods of the 1830's-50's?

5. In the early part of the 20th century what groups of immigrants were especially targeted?

6. After WWI what organizations were against migration? Why?

7. How did congress respond to the pressures of anti-immigrants in the early 1920"s?

8. Based on your own experiences and observations, do you think the idea of Nativism is still alive today? How? Give examples.