except two from the town of Northampton,
and every member of Congress. Its candidate for Governor
was Henry J. Gardner, a very skilful political organizer.
He had a book in which he had the names of men in every town
in the Commonwealth whom he attached to his personal fortunes
by promises, or flattery, or because in some cases of their
sincere belief in the doctrine. He understood better than
any other man I ever knew the value of getting the united
support of men who were without special influence, even the
man who were odious or ridiculous among their own neighbors,
but who united might be a very formidable force. He organized
with great skill and success the knave-power and the donkey-
power of the Commonwealth.

But a good many Anti-Slavery men who thought the party feeling
of the Whigs and Democrats was a great obstacle to their cause,
joined the movement simply in order that they might get rid
of the old parties, and prepare the State as with a subsoil
plow for a new one. They had no belief in the proscriptive
doctrines, and were willing that men of foreign birth and
Catholics should have their just rights, and expected to destroy
the Know Nothing Party in its turn when it had destroyed Whiggery
and Democracy. Of these was Henry Wilson, who owed his first
election to the Senate to the Know Nothing Legislature; and
Eli Thayer, who had been the organizer of the Emigrant Aid
Society, and the movement for the deliverance of Kansas and
Nebraska. Both these gentlemen abandoned the Know Nothing
Party the year after its formation. Mr. Thayer was elected
as a Republican to Congress in 1856, and reelected in 1858.
But he separated from his political associates and espoused
the squatter sovereignty doctrines of Stephen A. Douglas.
He, I have no doubt, was a sincere Anti-Slavery man. But
he liked to do things in peculiar and original ways of his
own, and was impatient of slow and old-fashioned methods.
So he got estranged from his Republican brethren, was defeated
as a candidate for Congress in 1860, took no part in public
activities during the time of the war, became somewhat soured,
and landed in the Democratic Party. I always had a great
liking for him, and deem him entitled to great public gratitude
for his services in the rescue of Kansas from what was known
as Border Ruffianism.

Neither Charles Sumner nor Charles Allen ever tolerated the
Know Nothing movement or made any terms with it. Its proscriptive