KNOW NOTHING. - A Protestant association ("American Protective Association"), whose members took an oath always to answer "I don’t know" ("Non so") to questions from outsiders about the names of other members or the existence and activities of the association. The people therefore called the association K. N., and the movement that gave rise to it Knownothing. Its official name, however, was "National Council of the United States of North America"; it was founded around 1850, uniting various pre-existing anti-Catholic organizations such as the "American Republicans" and the "Order of United Americans," "Sons of America," and so on.
Its purpose was to oppose Irish-Catholic influence in American political life, since many Irish immigrants, having become American citizens, took an active part in politics. Thus, its statutes stated that the association's purpose was to resist the insidious politics of the Church of Rome and foreign influences against American institutions (art. 2), and moreover that only Protestants could be members of the society (art. 3). At the time of admission, the candidate had to swear not to vote for nor to favor for public office anyone who was not Protestant and not born in America. Soon the association was carried away by its sectarian spirit into illegal acts and even vandalism, such as arson and destruction of churches and attacks on convents. Also noteworthy was the smear campaign against Archbishop G. Bedini, the Apostolic Nuncio to Brazil, during a visit to the United States. Despite such excesses, the K. N. for a time enjoyed wide support and was able to put forward candidates for deputies, senators, and even a M. Fillmore for the presidency of the Republic (1856). The common sense of the people, however, soon reacted. The death blow to the K. N. was struck by the defeat of Fillmore and the election of his opponent G. Buchanan. It disappeared altogether some time later with the election of A. Lincoln as president of the Republic. It was reborn, however, in 1891 under the name "American Protective Association" (A.P.A.) with the same purpose as the K. N. The anti-Catholic campaign was resumed, but with such vulgar slanders, such as, for example, the publication of a papal bull ordering the massacre of all Protestants in the United States, that it became ridiculous even in the eyes of Protestants. After the election of McKinley (1897), to which it had opposed itself, it began gradually to disappear, only to re-emerge a few years later together with the K. N. Ku-Klux-Klan (v.).