You might expect a 60 page essay on this political topic, but it really should just be 40 lines.
In the late 1700s....as politics developed in America....there were two general parties....the Democrats, and the Whigs.
Somewhere around the 1830s/1840s....there's some 'heartburn' going on within the Whig Party (the conservatives). There's some anti-Catholicism going on....there's anti-Irish sentiments brewing....and there's some urbanization worries going on.
So in 1844....a fair amount of the Whig Party dissolved into the 'Know Nothing' Party. Their political stances? They hyped up labor rights....women's rights....and regulation of industry.
I should state the obvious, there were elements of suggestion that various men within the party were supposed to be members of 'secret societies'. You know....guys who met in back rooms and plotting the overthrow of local, state, or the national government.
I should also state that the 'Know Nothing' crowd had a lot of enthusiasm over the temperance movement, and bringing alcohol to an end in America.
For roughly sixteen years, the 'Know Nothing' Party existed. By the end of the 1850s....the 'Know Nothing' group was mostly developed to be a political action group that hyped politics at every turn, and physical violence was a common theme for membership.
In a sense, the entire 1850-period is a us-versus-them landscape, with politics thrown into a blender, and spitting out national turmoil.
So in 1860, along come Lincoln....to transform the 'Know Nothing' Party into the Republican Party.....and in his mind, to lessen the tension going on. To achieve this success, the Civil War is the ultimate fix for this chaos. By 1865, political turmoil has been lessened and the us-versus-them mentality rapidly decreases.
You might argue that the Civil War was mostly about slavery. But the whole 1850s period is about a fractured nation, with civil conflict being the only exit out of the 1850s. Slavery just happened to be a by-product for this chaos.
