It is undoubtedly our earnest desire to attain, as soon as possible, the dignity of American citizens. But we will patiently wait the time when the law shall accord to us this title of nobility (whatever delay it may prescribe us to-day or establish to-morrow). We hold this title in high esteem, sufficiently to understand that the law, before conferring it on foreigners, should require them to become worthy of the privileges; and for ourselves, we do not pretend to see farther than the Americans into their own affairs. So far from aspiring to give them lessons of political conduct, we know that on all questions of this nature they are our superiors and masters, and it is our part to place ourselves on the seat of instruction. We feel ourselves far more urgently called to cultivate the earth, to erect buildings, and to establish various branches of industry, workshops, and schools, than to swell the ranks of any political party, to deposit our votes in the ballot box, or to place ourselves in either a scale of the political balance in the United States, Know-Nothingism, and Anti-Know-Nothingism—American Democracy Whiggism, Abolitionism, Pro-Slaveryism, with all the other isms of the same nature, are as yet to us only words expressing ideas, interests, and principles on which we are not ashamed to confess our ignorance, and to declare our perfect incompetence. All these questions, we think, are essentially American, concerning Americans alone, and in which no foreigner can reasonably take part until after he has been thoroughly Americanized; and,—this is not the work of a day.[3] 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]