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:
Not much to be learned from you.
Oh, and please tell us again why not a single one of Taney's biographers include anything about an arrest warrant. It just get funnier and funnier with each telling.
The 1807 US Insurrection Act mentions as if synonyms:
So we see there how such words were used in those days.
My basic argument here is:
"all indentured servants, Negroes, or others...free that are able and willing to bear arms..."[6]
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.
How many Kennedy Biographers mentioned what an utter piece of sh*t he was?
Lincoln is idolized in certain circles. The same forbearance regarding objectively ugly truths hold sway.
But the 2003 article does discuss anti-abortion violence in the context of “domestic insurrection.” I offer, without proof, that anti-abortion violence was not what Jefferson meant by the term “domestic violence.” And Jefferson was not referencing the Detroit Sitdown Strike of 1936 either.
Sadly, I predicted just such a result in my humorous post 325 when I invited a search of the internet. Read again, for the first time, what I wrote:
“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.”
Again, please post any sources you have that support your claim that Jefferson's reference to “domestic insurrection” in the DOI refers to loyalists or Indians.
The weight of the evidence indicates Lincoln did indeed issue an arrest warrant for Taney. Lincolns own friend and bodyguard made the accusation, and based on the legal principle of "statement against interest", it should be accepted as accurate.
So you're saying that none of the Taney biographers mentioned the arrest warrant because they thought it might make Taney look bad? Really? How did it make him look bad?
Lincoln is idolized in certain circles. The same forbearance regarding objectively ugly truths hold sway.
And you might have a point, however small, if we were dealing with biographies of Lincoln. But I'm talking about men who wrote very learned and well researched biographies on Roger Brooke Taney. The 11th Attorney General of the United states. The 12th Secretary of the Treasury. The 5th Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. And in none of those biographies did any of them talk about an arrest warrant on Taney. Why not?
When it comes to knowledge you are the Sahara desert.
The person being protected here is Lincoln. Nobody in the Scholarly community wants to say anything bad about Lincoln, and if any Taney biographer mentioned it, they would be castigated by everyone in their social peer group.
Of course they aren't going to mention it. It is a smoking gun that Lincoln was a tyrant.
None of the biographers I've read - James F. Simon, Bernard Steiner, and Walker Lewis - wrote a biography on Lincoln as well. So what motivation would they have to protect him at the expense of not accurately detailing the life of the central figure in their own books?
Nobody in the Scholarly community wants to say anything bad about Lincoln, and if any Taney biographer mentioned it, they would be castigated by everyone in their social peer group.
Do you honest not realize just how stupid that sounds? What's next? Lincoln really was gay but it's being suppressed because any biographer mentioning it would be raked over the coals? Lincoln really was Jewish but any biographer mentioning it would be tarred and feathered and drummed out of the Official Biographers Guild?
What you are suggesting is completely irrational. Oh wait...
At least he tipped his hand on why he thinks the absurd is plausible...
Mr. "The Truth Is Out There"?
Yea - “It can’t be a conspiracy theory if only I believe it!” himself
Nor, just as obviously, did Jefferson refer to non-existent slave revolts.
My entire argument is that Jefferson must be referencing events actually happening in 1776, such as loyalists "domestic violence" against local patriot governments, but not referencing non-existent slave revolts.
And this is hard for you to accept because?
You now want to move the goal post to “domestic violence?”
Please post any sources you have that support your earlier claim that Jefferson's reference to “domestic insurrection” in the DOI refers to loyalists or Indians.
Why does the mention of “Domestic insurrections” mean it is limited to the months before July, 1776?
This sounds like an arbitrary time frame of your invention, not Jefferson's or the signers of the DOI.
Jefferson wrote in the DOI of “a long Train of Abuses.” Jefferson said the king “has refused for a long Time” to cause others . . .
Jefferson said “Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated Injury.” This sounds like long-term grievances, not something that was limited to months before July, 1776.
We know the hated Stamp Act was passed in 1765. And the hated Tea Act in 1773.
What is your purpose in trying to limit the scope of grievances to just a few months in 1776? And how is it justified?
It looks like your tacit acknowledgment that Lincoln did, in fact, use slave labor to help build the Capitol has settled her hash.
I wasn't even going to bring it up until she mentioned it.
Read it again - for the first time. I seriously doubt that Lincoln was even aware of their employment.
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