But before this, what the Know Nothing Party had done was no different in essence from countless anti-immigrant organizations within the United States: nothing more than resorting to violence—beating, looting, and trampling.
Yet at this moment, the party suddenly decided to enter politics. The Know Nothing Party officially renamed itself the American Party. At first, politicians thought it was merely a joke cooked up by a bunch of rednecks.
But they soon found themselves unable to laugh, especially the Whig Party members. American Party candidates swiftly won large numbers of seats as governors, state legislators, mayors, and even members of Congress across multiple states.
The northern Whigs took the hardest hit. Their core base was scattered to the four winds by the American Party. In the foreseeable future, the American Party would surpass the Whig Party to become the second-largest party in Congress, perhaps even the largest.
In history, it was the American Party that had dismantled the Whig Party, directly giving birth to the Republican Party.
It was not as though the Whigs had not tried to save themselves. They wanted to replicate Zachary Taylor's earlier success, but Winfield Scott's military prestige was insufficient to make up for everything.
The two party giants, Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, both died in 1852, leaving the Whig Party in a state where the dragons had no head.
Coupled with the explosive outbreak of the immigration issue, the American Party's arrival could truly be said to have claimed every advantage of timing, terrain, and popular support.
Franz was rather interested in this. In the history books he remembered reading, it had often been described in only a handful of lines.
Yet Franz caught the scent of a turning point in history. He felt that the American Party was not incapable of rising