Here is an excellent review, by Dwight “ML” Sullivan at CAAFLog on the political posturing, pseudo-lawyering, and plain gaffs about these cases.

First SEAL prosecution imminent

It is my recollection that I learned about the Know Nothing party in history 101. Thanks to Wikipedia I can get my memory back.

The Know Nothing movement was a nativist American political movement of the 1840s and 1850s. It was empowered by popular fears that the country was being overwhelmed by German and Irish Catholic immigrants, who were often regarded as hostile to U.S. values and controlled by the Popein Rome. Mainly active from 1854 to 1856, it strove to curb immigration and naturalization, though its efforts met with little success. There were few prominent leaders, and the largely middle-class and entirely Protestant membership fragmented over the issue of slavery. Most ended up joining the Republican Party by the time of the 1860 presidential election.

I venture that LTC Lakin and his supporters, along with a number of other could fit well into a no nothing party.