@jerry69, here is some spin from an 1855 letter of Abraham Lincoln's:

“As a nation, we began by declaring that ‘all men are created equal.’ We now practically read it ‘all men are created equal, except negroes.’ When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read ‘all men are created equal, except negroes and foreigners and Catholics.’ When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty—to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.”

Know-Nothings refers to the American Party, which didn't want Irish Catholics fleeing the potato famine to enter the country.  People thought women were held against their will in Catholic convents and that priests systematically raped nuns and then strangled any children born as a result of their union.

See the comparison?