The Battle Hymn
The Battle Hymn of the Republic was written early in 1862, in the midst of the American Civil War. It was the “theme song” of the Union, and marked the transformation of public support in the North from a Civil War to preserve the Union, to a war to end slavery. It was later that year that Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation, an executive order that was the legal “beginning of the end” of slavery.
The Battle Hymn of the Republic is perhaps the most stirring of American patriotic songs. It places a vengeful God firmly on America’s side, “…trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored,” and “He has loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword”. It was re-written a couple of times. The lyrics to that tune (originally named “Oh Brother”) were first revised to praise John Brown. In October of 1859, Brown led an attack on the US Arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), with the intent of arming a slave revolt in the South. The assault failed, and Brown was soon convicted of murder and hanged.
His attack is now seen as the “end of compromise” between North and South over slavery, and the beginning of the final slide to the division of the United States. The song was called “John Brown’s Body (lies a moldering in the grave)”. Once the war started, the song was re-written to make it less “specific” to Brown and more general to the Union cause.
National Anthem
It may be the most stirring of “America’s Songs”, but The Battle Hymn “failed” to become the national anthem When Congress and President Hoover finally agreed on one in 1931 (36 U.S.C § 301(a)). It lost out to Francis Scott Key’s early homage to the flag, The Star Spangled Banner.
Like almost everything in the United States, it was a matter of compromise. The Battle Hymn was the rallying cry of the North in the Civil War, a song calling for freedom at the end of a “terrible swift sword”. It was a song of conquest, and countered by the Confederate Dixie Land. Key’s Star Spangled Banner was also a bloody war song. The seldom heard third verse contains the line, “Their blood has wash’d out their foul footstep’s pollution. No refuge could save the hireling and slave, From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave”. But the enemy he referred to was the British fleet and troops in Baltimore Harbor, not “fellow Americans”.
Looking at the history of the two songs is constructive in one way. The Battle Hymn was a call to one side of an American problem. It was a song of division, the division faced by America in the mid-19th century. It called on Americans to stand with the “right side”, “God’s side” of the Civil War. The Star Spangled Banner calls on Americans to honor a very real flag (still hanging on the Smithsonian Museum of American History). It puts all Americans on the deck of the British truce ship, hoping against hope that the flag, the fort, and the Baltimore would survive the British bombardment, “ ‘Tis the star-spangled banner, O long may it wave. O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Song of Division
All of this to say: we are a nation of the Battle Hymn of the Republic right now, not the Star Spangled Banner.
We are so clearly divided politically, and morally. Like the era before the Civil War, it has become almost impossible for “civil discourse”. There is one side and there is other side, both believing in the absolute certainty of their stand. The events of the last week firmly underline the reality: now Americans can even look at the same videos and still come to completely different conclusions. The old “don’t believe your lyin’ eyes”, has now become, let your ideas tell your eyes what you see.
Who’s in the middle? The essence of political polarization is that there is no room for the middle, no place for them in political debate. The “middle” are seen by both sides as the “uneducated”. If they only “knew” then they would take “their” side.
Which leads to the final question: it took a Civil War, blood on the battlefield, to “solve” the Battle Hymn versus Dixie Land crisis. One side today already claims the Star Spangled Banner flag as their own, waved as a symbol of “their” side. The violence has already begun. Our “John Brown’s Raid” moment may already be past. Perhaps we need another anthem.
America the Beautiful is still available.
Star Spangled Banner
By Francis Scott Key
O say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines on the stream:
‘Tis the star-spangled banner, O long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave,
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave,
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
O thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand,
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation,
Blessed with vict’ry and peace, may the heav’n rescued land,
Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave,
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
The Battle Hymn of the Republic
by Julia Ward Howe
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.
Chorus:
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.
I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
His day is marching on.
Chorus
I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
“As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on.”
Chorus
He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat:
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.
Chorus
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.
Chorus
He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,
He is Wisdom to the mighty, He is Succour to the brave,
So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of Time His slave,
Our God is marching on.
Chorus
You bring up why I tend to vote Republican. I am a proud Alabaman, not proud of what they did in the war or during reconstruction, or even my time there. But, given the opportunity could at least be on the right side of doing something about it. You history type know better than I that slavery existed because of those who would call themselves Democrats. Same with the war, they did not want to lose their way of life. Reconstruction, same thing. Got a big boost when the most racist President, Wilson, came to power. He supported the KKK, even showed “Birth of a Nation “ in the White House, worse, let the South know he would not interfere, and the results of that were on full display when I was born in a loving family that did not see that as right or fair. Dad did the unthinkable, had friends in the black community. We were poor country folks far from any city so it worked. Dad voted Republican, about all a poor dirt farmer could do to try and correct a wrong. Loved my dad, seventh grade education and all, if that was what we had to do to correct the problem I would do the same. With how many failures Democrats have made over the years I don’t understand how one could just blindly follow. Even I have voted Democratic 3 times because I thought the Republicans had lost their way. The going’s on the past few days not everyone thinks that way.
Howard I am well aware of the history of the Democratic Party, the bad that you mentioned, and the good. But, as you know, the Southern Democratic Party, the one that dominated the South and forced the rest of the Democrats “in line”, started falling apart in the 1940’s with the Dixiecrats and Strom Thurmond. It continued to become a lesser power through the Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s, and was overtaken first by George Wallace, and then the Nixon and Reagan Southern strategies. The Republican Party that I grew up with, with moderates like Nixon and Rockefeller and Pete McCloskey, was swept away by the old Taft, Goldwater, Reagan wing. And that’s the point in today’s politics: sure you can blame Democrats for the segregation and Woodrow Wilson, a true man of Virginia. And you’re right. But I can blame Republicans for ignoring the working man, Harding and Coolidge and Hoover (a good an decent person) failing to deal with the disastrous inequities and out of control capitalism that led to the Great Depression. It took a Democrat to get out of that, and Roosevelt began the reshaping of the Party the culminated in a more all encompassing group. There were Republicans I might have supported “back then”, (there still are today, I spent four months last year trying to get a Republican elected to a local trustee seat, because he was a good guy, the township was a disaster, and the Democrat running was corrupt). But today we are so polarized that to vote Republican means that you are voting for all of the authoritarianism that Trump embraces. Even a “good Republican” still has to toe that line: there is little room for diversity of ideas in the Republican Party. Look at all of the Republican Senators who have or are leaving office, because they can’t stand what’s going on, and won’t stand against it. And, in my view, that’s why the “I’ll vote for the best man” position doesn’t fly anymore. If the “best man” is required to vote for an authoritarian, then he (or she) isn’t “best” enough.
Fair response, no doubt the Republicans did not respond well when the crash occurred. And, while a fan of Roosevelt, think he botched the recovery also. Funny but you identify my first Presidential vote as one of the bad guys, Goldwater. Marty, I should not have started my involvement with your post in my condition and only an iPad to respond on, as much as I love this stuff. Will try and back off and let you youngsters have all the fun. Thanks for indulging me