The\u00a0Battle Hymn of the Republic<\/em>\u00a0was written early in 1862, in the midst of the American Civil War.\u00a0\u00a0It was the \u201ctheme song\u201d 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.\u00a0\u00a0It was later that year that Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation, an executive order that was the legal \u201cbeginning of the end\u201d of slavery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\u00a0Battle Hymn of the Republic\u00a0<\/em>is perhaps the most stirring of American\u00a0\u00a0patriotic songs.\u00a0\u00a0It places a vengeful God firmly on America\u2019s side, \u201c\u2026trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored<\/em>,\u201d and \u201cHe has loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword<\/em>\u201d. It was re-written a couple of times.\u00a0\u00a0The lyrics to that tune (originally named \u201cOh Brother\u201d)\u00a0<\/em>were first revised to praise John Brown.\u00a0\u00a0In October of 1859, Brown led an attack on the US Arsenal at Harper\u2019s Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), with the intent of arming a slave revolt in the South.\u00a0\u00a0The assault failed, and Brown was soon convicted of murder and hanged.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n His attack is now seen as the \u201cend of compromise\u201d between North and South over slavery, and the beginning of the final slide to the division of the United States.\u00a0\u00a0The song was called \u201cJohn Brown\u2019s Body (lies a moldering in the grave)\u201d<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Once the war started, the song was re-written to make it less \u201cspecific\u201d to Brown and more general to the Union cause.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n It may be the most stirring of \u201cAmerica\u2019s Songs\u201d, but\u00a0The Battle Hymn\u00a0<\/em>\u201cfailed\u201d to become the national anthem When Congress and\u00a0\u00a0President Hoover finally agreed on one in 1931\u00a0\u00a0(36 U.S.C \u00a7 301(a)).\u00a0\u00a0It lost out to Francis Scott Key\u2019s early homage to the flag,\u00a0\u00a0The Star Spangled Banner.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Like almost everything in the United States, it was a matter of compromise.\u00a0\u00a0The\u00a0Battle Hymn\u00a0<\/em>was the rallying cry of the North in the Civil War, a song calling for freedom at the end of a \u201cterrible swift sword\u201d.\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0It was a song of conquest, and countered by the Confederate\u00a0Dixie Land.\u00a0<\/em>Key\u2019s\u00a0Star Spangled Banner\u00a0<\/em>was also a bloody war song.\u00a0\u00a0The seldom heard third verse contains the line, \u201cTheir blood has wash’d out their foul footstep’s pollution.\u00a0\u00a0No refuge could save the hireling and slave, From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave\u201d.\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0But the enemy he referred to was the British fleet and troops in Baltimore Harbor, not \u201cfellow Americans\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Looking at the history of the two songs is constructive in one way.\u00a0\u00a0The Battle Hymn\u00a0<\/em>was a call to one side of an American problem.\u00a0\u00a0It was a song of division, the division faced by America in the mid-19th<\/sup>\u00a0century.\u00a0\u00a0It called on Americans to stand with the \u201cright side\u201d, \u201cGod\u2019s side\u201d of the Civil War.\u00a0\u00a0The Star Spangled Banner\u00a0<\/em>calls on Americans to honor a very real flag (still hanging on the Smithsonian Museum of American History).\u00a0\u00a0It 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, \u201c\u00a0\u2018Tis the star-spangled banner, O long may it wave.\u00a0\u00a0O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n All of this to say: we are a nation of the Battle Hymn of the Republic <\/em>right now, not the Star Spangled Banner<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We are so clearly divided politically, and morally.\u00a0\u00a0Like the era before the Civil War, it has become almost impossible for \u201ccivil discourse\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0There is one side and there is other side, both believing in the absolute certainty of their stand.\u00a0\u00a0The events of the last week firmly underline the reality:\u00a0\u00a0now Americans can even look at the same videos and still come to completely different conclusions.\u00a0\u00a0The old \u201cdon\u2019t believe your lyin\u2019 eyes\u201d, has now become, let your ideas tell your eyes what you see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Who\u2019s in the middle?\u00a0\u00a0The essence of political polarization is that there is no room for the middle, no place for them in political debate.\u00a0\u00a0The \u201cmiddle\u201d are seen by both sides as the \u201cuneducated\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0If they only \u201cknew\u201d then they would take \u201ctheir\u201d side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Which leads to the final question:\u00a0\u00a0it took a Civil War, blood on the battlefield, to \u201csolve\u201d the\u00a0Battle Hymn\u00a0<\/em>versus\u00a0Dixie Land\u00a0<\/em>crisis.\u00a0\u00a0One side today already claims the\u00a0Star Spangled Banner\u00a0<\/em>flag as their own, waved as a symbol of \u201ctheir\u201d side.\u00a0\u00a0The violence has already begun.\u00a0 Our “John Brown’s Raid” moment may already be past. \u00a0Perhaps we need another anthem.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n America the Beautiful <\/em>is still available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By Francis Scott Key<\/p>\n\n\n\n O say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light, The Battle Hymn of the Republic<\/em> Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord: Chorus: I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,National Anthem<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Song of Division<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Star Spangled Banner<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\u2060What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
\u2060O’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,
\u2060O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
\u2060Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
\u2060As 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
\u2060That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more?
\u2060Their 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,
\u2060Between their loved home and the war’s desolation,
Blessed with vict’ry and peace, may the heav’n rescued land,
\u2060Praise 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!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
by Julia Ward Howe<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n