became a problem and relief rolls rose. At the same time, planters were a strong force in the state; many Catholic and Episcopalian planters resided on the Eastern Shore, which continued as primarily agricultural. In 1853, the Maryland Know Nothing party was formed, initially from three nativist groups. Yet beginning in February, it took in large numbers of striking laborers from the ironwork's factory in Baltimore, whom the Democratic Party had refused to support. In opposing the pro-slavery Democrats, the Know Nothings became a powerful, but divisive, party in the state. They were pro-Union, pro-labor, anti-Catholic, and anti-immigrant. Along with other reformers, Anna Carroll campaigned by writing against urban machine corruption, crime, and what was perceived as the political threat of the power of the Catholic Church. In Maryland the Catholic planter/urban vote could combine to establish a pro-slavery state government. In 1856, the Whig Party split nationally into Northern and Southern factions due to the slavery issue. During the 1856 presidential election, Carroll supported and campaigned on behalf of Fillmore, the Know Nothing candidate. Carroll wrote many articles and pamphlets and she toured the Northeast on his behalf. Considered a moderate, Fillmore carried the state of Maryland, his only victory in the election. For the 1856 campaign, Anna Carroll published two party books that greatly extended her political and press contacts: The Great American Battle, or, The Contest Between Christianity and Political Roman-ism and The Star of the West, and influential pamphlets such as "The Union of the States". The former book was a virulent criticism of the political influence of the Roman Catholic Church under the papacy of Pius IX (see anti-clericalism). In 1857 Carroll was the chief publicist for Governor Thomas H. Hicks of Maryland; he credited his victory to her writings. In 1858, she took up the cause of former Congressman John Minor Botts, a Unionist from Virginia, in his presidential bid. She published a series of articles in the New York Evening Express newspaper on the 1860 candidates under the pseudonym "Hancock." Others over time appeared in the influential National Intelligencer, among other venues. Secession role With the election of Abraham Lincoln as president in 1860, Carroll freed her slaves. She began to work to oppose the secession of the Southern states and helped keep Maryland loyal to the Union. Lincoln's election set off the secession movement, which began with South Carolina's exit on December