Posted on 11/18/2017 6:36:43 AM PST by iowamark
On or around this day in 1861, Julia Ward Howe is inspired to write the Battle Hymn of the Republic. Did you know that this much-loved patriotic song has its roots in the Civil War years?
Julia was the daughter of a Wall Street broker and a poet. She was well-educated and was able to speak fluently in several languages. Like her mother, she loved to write. She also became very interested in the abolitionist and suffragette causes.
Samuel Howe was progressive in many ways, but he wasn’t too keen on expanding women’s rights. He thought Julia’s place was in the home, performing domestic duties. Interesting, since he proceeded to lose her inheritance by making bad investments.
One has to wonder if she could have managed her own inheritance a bit better?
After a while, Julia got tired of being stifled. She had never really given up writing, but now she published some of her poems anonymously. Samuel wasn’t too happy about that! The matter apparently became so contentious that the two were on the brink of divorce. Samuel especially disliked the fact that Julia’s poems so often seemed to reflect the personal conflicts within their own marriage.
In fact, people figured out that Julia had written the poems. Oops.
Events swung in Julia’s favor in 1861. Julia and Samuel had decided to attend a review of Union trips, along with their minister, James Freeman Clarke. The Union soldiers were singing a tune about the abolitionist John Brown, who had been killed before the Civil War. The lyrics included such lines as: “John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave, His soul is marching on!”
Clarke wasn’t too impressed. He suggested to Julia that she try to write more inspirational lyrics for the same melody. Julia proceeded to do exactly that. She later remembered that she “awoke in the gray of the morning twilight; and as I lay waiting for the dawn, the long lines of the desired poem began to twine themselves in my mind. Having thought out all the stanzas, I said to myself, ‘I must get up and write these verses down, lest I fall asleep again and forget them.’”
Perhaps you will recognize the lyrics that she wrote that morning.
“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.”
Julia’s hymn supported the Union army and challenged the Confederate cause. One historian notes that she “identifies the Army of the Potomac with the divine armies that would crush the forces of evil and inaugurate the millennium. . . .”
In February 1862, Julia’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic” was published in the Atlantic Monthly. The song was a hit and Julia’s fame spread quickly. In the years that followed, she traveled widely, lecturing and writing more than ever. She was President of a few associations, and she later became the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Julia’s song began as a morale-booster for Union troops. Today, it has grown beyond that to such an extent that most people do not remember its beginnings.
Primary Sources:
You probably start out that way, and then you add your own personal preferences to what they mean instead of looking at the context in which they were created.
Here we go round in circles.
True. But on the plus side you probably have a brand new load of crap you can regurgitate at will like with the tariffs stuff, your defense of Dred Scott, the funding of government load, and all the rest. So there's that.
And this is why I often just ignore the stuff you say.
Actually the subject is the Battle Hymn of the Republic.
That is the thesis of the thread, but in these discussions, we often range far afield of the original topic.
So you can “range” but I cannot?
Sure you can, but conflating "wealth" and the Declaration of independence does not make much sense in the context.
I suppose you could argue that one is a consequence of the other, and so they have an indirect relation, but the Declaration of Independence does not directly address the topic of "wealth."
DiogenesLamp is the master of the out of context quote. To understand what Chief Justice Chase felt about the Southern actions one has to look at more than just a single sentence.
In June 1867, one month before the DiogenesLamp quote, Chief Justice Chase issued a ruling in the case of Shortridge v. Macon (22 F. Cas 20). Writing from the Circuit Court Bench, Chase wrote, "The national constitution declares that "treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort." The word "only" was used to exclude from criminal jurisprudence of the new republic the odious doctrines of constructive treason. Its use, however, while limiting the definition to plain, overt acts, brings these acts into conspicuous relief as being always and in essence treasonable. War, therefore, levied against the United States by citizens of the republic, under the pretend authority of the new state government of North Carolina, or of the so-called Confederate government which assumed the title of the "Confederate States," was treason against the United States."
Chase is clear that treason is clearly defined and requires a clear waging of war or adhering to an enemy to qualify as such. Given this, then Chase is not contradicting himself when he says secession is not treason. It is not, not under the definition given in the constitution since secession does not automatically involve war or adherence to one's enemies. But Chase is also clear, both in this ruling and in Texas v. White, that secession as practiced by the Southern states was illegal. That the rebellion that they waged to further that act of secession was treasonable, but that governments are not automatically bound to put rebels on trial for a variety of reasons.
In short, DiogenesLamp is correct in that Chase did not equate secession with treason. But he is as wrong as he could possibly be by implying that meant Chase thought the Confederate secession was legal.
Link to the Shortridge v. Macon decision.
Most liberals are practiced in the art of hair-splitting. DegenerateLamp is no exception.
Nonsense.
Totally bogus and based on statistics from the 1870 census which had undercounted Southerners suspicious of Union census takers.
By 1880 conditions improved and straight-lines from 1860 to 1880 show no dip in population counts.
Actual reports of excess deaths, or cemetery populations, do not justify such exaggerated claims.
Then what are we to make of his "Lincoln wanted Davis to escape, and he was right. His capture was a mistake. His trial will be a greater one." Point?
Such a statement doesn't make sense in your explanation.
I can split hairs with the best of them, but I can also point out what is the plain meaning of something. I simply don't bring my own prejudice to the interpretation.
It is a lie to portray it as benign. The previous mission only required one ship. General Scott's orders clearly state it was a reinforcement mission.
Without seeing the quote in context it's hard to tell. What is Foote's source?
You will have to find an access to his book. I'm sure he cites his source in there somewhere.
I don't think he is making it up.
While your link discusses slavery, it also makes clear the Constitution's language refers to indentured servants or slaves, or potentially even convicts & draft dodgers.
So the Constitution does not "enshrine" slavery specifically, but any state law which might hold a person to service, that law must be honored in the other states.
Nothing says states cannot abolish slavery, enfranchise former slaves, or that states must allow slaves to be kept by owners from other states, as alleged by the Supreme Court's Dred-Scott decision.
Our pro-Confederate propagandists wish us to believe that slavery was immutably "enshrined" in the 1787 Constitution when that is totally false.
Nonsense - you are blind to your own prejudices.
Dred Scott goes too far in it's claim that former slaves could not be enfranchised. That matter would be entirely up to the states to decide. The Decision is correct that states cannot completely abolish slavery so long as the constitution protects slavery by the laws of other states.
The Constitution does not mince words. An escaped slave must be given up to the party to whom his labor is due. It doesn't say anything about where any of the parties can be, or must be, or can't be. It makes no claims regarding any specificity of location, therefore it must apply everywhere the constitution itself applies.
Everyone is.
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