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:
It could also refer to actual "domestic insurrections" by American loyalists against patriots, of which there had been a good many, at the time.
But there were no slave revolts at the time, making jeffersondem's claims here bogus.
I am not acquainted with any authoritative work that lends context to each of the complaints outlined in the DOL If one exists (and I'm sure that one does, somewhere) I would love to obtain a copy. In the meanwhile I'm forced by circumstance to rely on scattered readings and references for guidance.
If you'll pardon a bit of remedial contextualizing, understanding the message of the DOL starts with an understanding of the framework of the document itself. I can see why some call the Declaration of independence Jefferson's "finest endeavor". It's a masterpiece, both of construction and of import. It's logical sequence gracefully leads from one element to the next. The claims and substantiations also logically lead one to the next, arranged by severity.
I was taught to look first to the big picture, and then to it's components. Not like a halfwit who looks at a pock and claims to divine meaning for the moon, rather than looking at the moon in order to understand the pock.
The Declaration of independence is comprised of five elements:
• Preamble: the reasons for writing down the Declaration (from "WHEN, in the Course of human Events" to "declare the Causes which impel them to the Separation.").
• Statement of beliefs: specifying what the undersigned believed, the philosophy behind the document (from "We hold these Truths to be self-evident" to "an absolute Tyranny over these States").
• List of complaints: the offenses that impelled the declaration (from "To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World" to "unfit to be the ruler of a free people").
• Statement of prior attempts to redress grievances: (From "Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren," to "Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.")
• A declaration of independence: (From "WE, therefore" to "and our sacred Honour.")
Each element is important in it's own right but the heart of the document - and the focus of this discussion is in the third section, List of Complaints.
I would agree that there is certainly room for "patriots vs.loyalists" infighting orchestrated and encouraged by the Brits as part of their complaint of undue interference. Likewise, we could cite examples of a proxy war of sorts being waged by indians against the colonists at the Brit's urging and upon their behalf. As seen in the outline (above) the authors were very precise in their engineering of this document. We know that the authors threw in everything except the kitchen sink. If they had it as a grievance they mentioned it.
So why didn't they mention slavery? Because delegates from South Carolina and Georgia threatened to pull out if it was included. Jefferson's claim of inciting slave rebellions was removed from the agenda and the reference deleted. You've seen the deleted passage before but here it is again - just so we can be clear on this point:
He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where Men should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he has obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed again the Liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another. (bold mine)Jefferson's complaint was the the Brits - who visited slavery upon the colonies in the first place - were actively interfering in the colonist's actions and desires to rid themselves of the foul practice. He could have (and wanted to) mention slavery but was overruled.
So what do we end up with? Inciting the natives? mentioned specifically. Reference to internecine warfare? Implied. Slave insurrections? Removed. My opinion is that he was referring to injun uprisings.
“So that line (HE has excited domestic Insurrections) in the Declaration of Independence does not refer to slavery.”
It is interesting to watch you debate the DOI with Thomas Jefferson.
Elsewhere you have referenced, and vouched for the reliability of, Jefferson’s “deleted paragraph.”
The deleted paragraph reads, in one or more of the drafts:
“He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where Men should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he has obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed again the Liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.”
Note well Jefferson’s words: “he is now exciting those VERY PEOPLE to rise in arms among us (emphasis added).”
And what “very people” is he talking about?
Indians? No.
Other British citizens? No.
Slaves? Yes. Read it again for the first time.
It is tricky business to cite language that the 13 slave states voted NOT to include in the DOI as definitive of what their thinking was. I would not have attempted it if you had not vouched for its relevance.
But there can be no doubt that Jefferson was writing about slaves and slave rebellions even if his colleagues voted to amend the final language to something less condemning and more euphemistic.
Read again what Jefferson said, for the first time:
“The clause too, reprobating the enslaving the inhabitants of Africa, was struck out in complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and who on the contrary still wished to continue it. Our Northern brethren also I believe felt a little tender under those censures; for tho’ their people have very few slaves themselves yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others.”
Slave states, north and south, did not like the censures.
You might take a look at this:
http://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history-primary-documents
And look at this:
And this:
http://colonialhall.com/histdocs/declaration/declarationanalysis27.php
Look here:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2h33.html
And here:
https://theamericanscholar.org/domestic-insurrection/
And here:
Yes, I know that recommending an internet search is dangerous. And, yes, I will wager the value of a medium-priced homosexual cupcake that you will find a college student, or maybe a professor, that will claim the term “domestic insurrection” refers to the practice of women burning braziers. But that is not factual.
"...Note well Jefferson’s words: 'he is now exciting those VERY PEOPLE to rise in arms among us (emphasis added).' "
Note, for jeffersondem's claim to be valid, the two different phrases here ("domestic insurrections" vs. "rise in arms") must refer to the same things.
But in fact, they do not.
“”Domestic insurrections” refers to actual insurrections of British loyalists against local patriots in Virginia & elsewhere in the months before July, 1776.”
That is an interesting comment.
May we see your sources for the term “domestic insurrections?”
Perhaps you should refer to your own reference materials, they being so definitive and authoritative and all - and nary a one referring to “women burning braziers” (or brassieres for that matter).
Insurrection: "The act or an instance of open revolt against civil authority or a constituted government."
American Loyalists battling Patriot government forces would be a "domestic insurrection" in the eyes of our Founders.
If those loyalists included runaway servants & slaves, those slaves were said to "rise in arms".
Yes, an actual slave revolt would indeed qualify as "domestic insurrection", but there were no slave revolts, at that time.
Nor did Brits incite slave revolts, but rather for slaves to run away to join the Brits and "rise in arms".
And least we forget, the point of this definitional hair-splitting is to demonstrate that protecting slavery was not mentioned, even implicitly, in the Declaration of Independence.
You can't win an argument with people who refuse to acknowledge facts. They want to believe what they want to believe, and all contrary facts only annoy them.
As well we know.
“Insurrection: “The act or an instance of open revolt against civil authority or a constituted government.” “
Again, may we see your sources for the term “domestic insurrection.”
In your post #326 you were very specific: “”Domestic insurrections” refers to actual insurrections of British loyalists against local patriots in Virginia & elsewhere in the months before July, 1776.”
If you have actual sources for the term contemporaneous with 1776 I’d like to see and learn. If you don’t have sources, that’s fine. Just say, I don’t have any. There is no shame in saying you can’t find your sources.
You don't behave as if you know. For example, you keep trying to dismiss the evidence that Lincoln issued an arrest warrant for Judge Taney.
I really wouldn't bother. He will keep going in circles all the while claiming that you just don't understand the situation, and it isn't really what it says in plain English, it is something different which he will be happy to explain to you in very verbose communications that usually won't get near the salient point.
” . . . (or brassieres for that matter).”
In today’s toxic climate, there is no way I’m going to make a post including that word.
“I really wouldn’t bother.”
If my good friend Brother Joe has facts to back his arguments I’m sure he’ll bring them forward.
If he doesn’t, he won’t.
We’ll find out soon enough.
He is the sort, that when you ask him "what time is it?", he tells you how to build a clock...
.
.
... and the clock won't work.
Of course I do. I've been watching you for a long time.
For example, you keep trying to dismiss the evidence that Lincoln issued an arrest warrant for Judge Taney.
Apparently I'm not alone. Every single biographer of Roger Taney has dismissed the idea of an arrest warrant. Yet you keep on bringing it up
And yet you still keep doing it (ignoring facts) despite my good example of objectivity.
One can only conclude that you don't want to learn.
Because, if you are asking for the time of day, then the real issue is: why don't you already know it? Why are you even asking?
That's what needs to be addressed.
DiogenesLamp: "... and the clock won't work."
But of course it does work, otherwise you wouldn't be asking what it says.
Your problem is, you don't like what it says (i.e., the hour is late, FRiend) so you pretend it doesn't work.
C'est la vie.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.