 Boernstein became an early supporter of the newly founded Republican Party, and he dramatized the fact that John Frémont was not on the ballot in Missouri in 1856 by having his followers vote for the Know-Nothing presidential candidate Millard Fillmore "under protest," since the nativist position was incidentally in tune with his hostility to Catholicism.Boernstein's freewheeling methods earned him enemies within the German community as well as among English-speakers.In 1857 "Die westliche Post" was founded as a competitor for support from "progressive" Germans.