g
it in a dangerously sectional fashion, and for that reason patriotism as
well as the requirements of professional politics induced men to veil it
as much as might be. Yet its presence made the professional play-acting
more and more unmeaning and intolerable.

It was this state of things which made possible the curious interlude of
the "Know-Nothing" movement, which cannot be ignored, though it is a
kind of digression from the main line of historical development. The
United States had originally been formed by the union of certain
seceding British colonies, but already, as a sort of neutral ground in
the New World, their territory had become increasingly the meeting-place
of streams of emigration from various European countries. As was
natural, a certain amount of mutual jealousy and antagonism was making
itself apparent as between the old colonial population and the newer
elements. The years following 1847 showed an intensification of the
problem due to a particular cause. That year saw the Black Famine in
Ireland and its aggravation by the insane pedantry and folly of the
British Government. Innumerable Irish families, driven from the land of
their birth, found a refuge within the borders of the Republic. They
brought with them their native genius for politics, which for the first
time found free outlet in a democracy. They were accustomed to act
together and they were soon a formidable force. This force was regarded
by many as a menace, and the sense of menace was greatly increased by
the fact that these immigrants professed a religious faith which the
Puritan tradition of the States in which they generally settled held in
peculiar abhorrence.

The "Know-Nothings" were a secret society and owed that name to the fact
that members, when questioned, professed to know nothing of the ultimate
objects of the organization to which they belonged. They proclaimed a
general hostility to indiscriminate immigration, for which a fair enough
case might be made, but they concentrated their hostility specially on
the Irish Catholic element. I have never happened upon any explanation
of the secrecy with which they deliberately surrounded their aims. It
seems to me, however, that a possible explanation lies on the surface.
If all they had wanted had been to restrict or regulate immigration, it
was an object which could be avowed as openly as the advocacy of a
tariff or of the restriction of Slavery in a territory. But if, as their