He expressed no fear of the consequences that Know-Nothingism would have on his scheme. On the other hand, he analyzed the movement from a political and social viewpoint and said nothing but good would come out of it if it were conducted in a proper way. He had been told that the party had as a cardinal principle the exclusion of all foreigners from the domains of the United States, but through reading and investigation he found out the true position of the party, namely, that it did not particularly desire to exclude foreigners but to increase the time of their residence within the United States before conferring political rights upon them. Their civil rights were not called in question. Considerant believed the causes for the rise of this party to be the following: (1) accumulation of slums in larger cities causing indigent people to become numerous; (2) lowering of wage scales by incoming immigrants; (3) the possibility of these indigent new citizens forming a political block that would destroy American principles of government; (4) fear of the religious affiliations of these immigrants of whom practically all were Roman Catholics.[4]
Considerant either was a novice in his judgment of American political attitudes and was mistaken concerning the essential results of the Know-Nothing Party on foreigners, or he was showing masterful diplomacy. It seems the former was the case. He always esteemed the American people very highly, ascribing to them far more love of liberty and toleration than they possessed. It seemed absolutely impossible to him that the Americans, steeped in democracy, would deny newcomers a small piece of the vast uninhabited wilderness in which to live, no matter what form of democracy they might profess. Then too, Considerant trusted the masses, and like Jefferson, believed that eventually justice and right would triumph if the people were permitted to decide the issues of government. However, he was to learn that the hard-working American of 1853 whom he had met on the frontier and in the cities was a different type of man from that of 1855 when agitated by political leaders seeking votes to control the national government. He met opposition from men from whom he expected help and especially from the newspapers.