09/15/2024
In 1858, Henry Winter Davis spoke out against "un-American" Irish Catholics voting for president: "They have brought vast multitudes of foreign-born citizens to the polls, ignorant of American interests, without American feelings, influenced by foreign sympathies, to vote on American affairs; and those votes have, in point of fact, accomplished the present result." Davis' "Know-Nothing Party" produced propaganda like this cartoon depicting immigrants from Ireland and Germany as violent drunks who are stealing the vote from "real" Americans.