In the 1850s, what did the Democratic Party stand for, what kind of people voted for them(North, South, Poor, Rich, Urban, Rural, etc.), and their electoral successes and failures. The same thing with the Know Nothings Party as well as the Republican Party, these were the Political Parties back in the 1850s and not the present day Political Parties, THEY ARE DIFFERENT!

Political Party

In the years after the Civil War, the Republican Party dominated the office of the presidency. The Party of Lincoln could boast of victory in the Civil War and encouraged supporters—many of them veterans of the US Army—to “vote as they shot.” The Republican coalition included white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants; rural northerners and westerners; and African American men. During Reconstruction, the Republican Party worked to secure civil rights for black people in the South, but the party’s commitment to racial equality waned by the late 1870s.

The Republican Party also promoted the expansion of business and infrastructure, granting railroad companies land and subsidies to expand rail lines across the continent. Economically, the party supported a strong protective tariff to shield American industry from foreign competition, and a “hard money” policy that tied the dollar to the gold standard. These policies benefited banks and business owners.

The Democratic Party

Although the Republican Party dominated the presidency during the Gilded Age, political contests throughout the era were hotly contested, and Democrats frequently took control of the House of Representatives. The Democrats championed state and local control of government, opposed the protectionist tariff, and regarded personal liberty as more important than moral reform.

The Democratic Party appealed to white southerners and northeastern city dwellers, particularly Irish and German immigrants. Democratic state governments in the South opposed civil rights for African Americans during Reconstruction and imposed segregation and Jim Crow laws afterward.

In northern cities, the Democratic Party was particularly adept at operating political machines, organizations in which party bosses distributed food and jobs to immigrants and the poor in exchange for their votes. The most famous of these was Tammany Hall in New York City, where William “Boss” Tweed ruled with an iron fist.

Know-Nothing party

Byname of American Party, U.S. political party that flourished in the 1850s. It was an outgrowth of the strong anti-immigrant and especially anti-Roman Catholic sentiment that started to manifest itself during the 1840s. A rising tide of immigrants, primarily Germans in the Midwest and Irish in the East, seemed to pose a threat to the economic and political security of native-born Protestant Americans. In 1849 the secret Order of the Star-Spangled Banner formed in New York City, and soon after lodges formed in nearly every other major American city.

Hope this helps friend!!

the idealization of the rural landscape ; admiration for the beauty of nature ; focus on an individual's inner concerns