Filling a Void.

The decline of the Whigs eliminated an important bond of Unionism but did not necessarily mean that politics would become polarized along sectional lines. To the contrary, in the immediate aftermath of the 1852 election it seemed that the major response to voters' dissatisfaction would take the form of initiatives unrelated to sectional disputes. In much of the country, the future evidently lay with prohibitionist and nativist movements. Coalitions enacted adaptations of the Maine Law throughout New England and in New York, Delaware, and much of the Midwest from 1852 to 1855. These efforts fed into broader nativist impulses that received a new organization when two secret fraternal organizations, the Order of United Americans and the Order of the Star Spangled Banner, merged in 1852 to form the Know Nothing Party. The Know Nothings did not seek to restrict immigration but tried to...