With the election of 1868, Democratic propaganda combined immigrant fears of the latent Know Nothingism of some Republicans and white immigrants’ concerns about their own possibly declining status in relation to freed slaves. This newspaper, a Democratic stalwart, refers to the Republicans as “the Mongrel Party” because it admitted blacks as well as whites.
I do not know if the Republicans quoted actually made these anti-immigrant statements, but I have seen some Republican supporters of Black suffrage make arguments that if immigrants could become citizens and vote, then native born African Americans should be able to vote. These arguments were sometimes couched in language demeaning to immigrants, particularly those from Ireland.
1868 was the first year in which hundreds of thousands of African Americans were eligible to vote. Democrats were desperate to delay black voting for as long is possible. Some Democrats argued that since immigrants needed to wait five years after arriving in the U.S. to be able to vote, that a similar waiting period should be imposed for blacks after they were recognized as citizens under the post-war 14th Amendment. This would have meant that blacks would be disqualified from voting until 1873!
Irishmen And Germans Read This
Daily Constitutionalist
Sunday, Jun 07, 1868
Augusta, GA
Vol: 25
Issue: 134
Page: 2
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