Christian faith key to 'Banner'

The Washington Times ^ | 10/02/2008 | Richard G. Williams, Jr.

[Davy Buck]

"No specific charges were ever levied against Key's grandson. The editor's offense was simply that he had dared criticize President Lincoln. Thus, some of the liberties Francis Scott Key had enjoyed and had written about so eloquently had been lost in just one generation. Nevertheless, the patriotic fire that had dwelt in Key's heart was still alive in his grandson. . ."

[Moonman62]

Why didn’t you put this in Breaking News?

[Tennessee Nana]

Something that happened about 150 years ago is hardly “breaking news”

[newheart]

Is it possible that an article can be so interesting and so stupid at the same time. The article leads with the arrest of Key’s grandson without explaining in any detail what he was arrested for. Then it meanders around with some very interesting information about the song, Key’s faith, his grandson’s faith and his grandson’s friendship with John Randolph. None of that information illuminates the lead paragraph about the arrest.

At the end we learn that he was arrested for criticizing Lincoln, was never charged and spent some time in prison. But it never tells us what he said about Lincoln. Very frustrating.

I think I am just cranky this morning, but if the story is about Key’s faith, the writer should have led with that and not with the arrest of the grandson, when no effort is going to be made to tell that story. This story needs an editor.

[TLI]

The editor's offense was simply that he had dared criticize President Lincoln.

The other president from the Illinois legislature?

I wonder when the secessions will start. January? April perhaps?

[Pikachu_Dad]

Well, lets see what we can find.

- April 19th, 1861, Riot in Baltimore when 6th Massachusetts passes through the city.
- 27 April 1861, Lincoln suspends writ of habeas corpus
- 13 September 1861 Francis Key Howard, Baltimore newspaper editor, imprisoned at Ft. McHenry.

along with the Mayor of Baltimore, the police chief, all the police commissioners, many members of the legislator. Many were released upon swearing an oath of allegiance to the union.

http://books.google.com/books?id=hIcsAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA198&lpg=PA198&dq=Francis+Key+Howard+arrest+1861&source=bl&ots=mvvk98QMfN&sig=UJOW-9aEfhvjYBA98xF9XUtukJ8&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=5&ct=result#PPA201,M1

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Introduction

The outbreak of the Civil War created a difficult situation, especially in the border slave states like Maryland. Officially, Maryland stayed in the Union and offered its support to the Federal government, but many citizens had strong sympathies to the southern states. These feelings got even stronger after Lincoln’s Proclamation in 1861. While Maryland regiments were included in the Union army, many Marylanders joined the Confederacy and created several Infantry and Cavalry regiments, under the leadership of men like William H. Murray or Colonel Edward Rutland Dorsey.

Ordinary citizens expressed their southern sympathies in songs as “Maryland, My Maryland!” by James Ryder Randall or “I’m Good Old Rebel.” Baltimore women, who sympathized with the South used the Confederate flag for their dresses. The mostly peaceful southern sympathizers turned violent on April 19th, 1861, when the 6th Massachusetts regiment was passing through Baltimore on its way to Washington, D.C. A riot on President Street broke out and resulted in the first blood of the Civil War. In response, the Maryland Governor Thomas H. Hicks and Baltimore Mayor George. W. Brown requested that the President not to send any more troops through the city and the City Council agreed to raise $500,000 to be used to build city defenses.

The suspension of the civil rights in Maryland by the President followed and many significant Maryland officials were arrested and imprisoned in Fort McHenry, including the Mayor Brown, the Marshal of Police G. P. Kane, several state delegates, as well as attorney Francis Key Howard, the grandson of Francis Scott Key.

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http://teachingamericanhistorymd.net/000001/000000/000114/html/t114.html

and this

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Notes

Colonial Families in the U.S.”He was also, with his father, a “Prisoner of State” in the Civil War. He left issue.”

Francis Scott Key’s Grandson Arrested by Lincoln Government: As many of you probably know, Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus as he saw fit, beginning on 27 April 1861. He considered any person who did not openly and unconditionally pledge his support to the war against the South guilty by his own definition of treason.

In his defense of his actions Lincoln stated that “...the public safety does require the suspension.” “Arrests by process of courts and arrests in cases of rebellion do not proceed altogether upon the same basis....In the latter case the arrests are made not so much for what has been done, as for what probably would be done.” “The man who stands by and says nothing when the peril of his Government is discussed cannot be misunderstood.”
(These quotations taken from his speech recorded in the American Annual Cyclopedia and Register of Important Events of the Year 1863; New York, New York; Appleton and Company 1870, pgs. 800-802)

In other words, what a man might do could get him arrested. And a man’s silence could also be a reason for arrest. Northern Congressmen realised the danger and spoke against such tyrannical opinions, to no avail.

Before the Maryland Legislature could consider secession, Lincoln interceded and made sure it wouldn’t pass any ordinances. Members of the Maryland legislature were imprisoned as well as other leading citiznes of Maryland. One of the men imprisoned by Lincoln’s edict was the editor of the Baltimore Exchange, member of the Baltimore Bar, and grandson of Francis Scott Key, author of the “Star Spangled Banner”!

Francis Key Howard was imprisoned at Ft. McHenry on 13 September 1861. While there he wrote:

“When I looked out in the morning, I could not help being struck by an odd and not pleasant coincidence. On that day, forty-seven years before, my grandfather, Mr. F.S. Key, the prisoner on a British ship, had witnessed the bombardment of Ft. McHenry. When on the following morning the hospital fleet drew off, defeated, he wrote the song so long popular throughout the country, the “Star Spangled Banner”. As I stood upon the very scene of that conflict, I could not but contrast my position with his, forty-seven years before. The flag which had then so proudly hailed, I saw waving at the same place over the victims of as vulgar and brutal a despotism as modern times have witnessed.”

What happened to Francis Key Howard? He and others were taken from Ft. McHenry and sent to Fortress Monroe. They were imprisoned because the Government “had in its possession ample evidence of the fact, that all who had been arrested had in some way violated the laws.”

From Fortress Monroe, Howard and others were shipped to Ft. Lafayette in New York Harbor and then to Fort Warren in Boston. They were not released until 27 November 1862.

Francis Key Howard wrote this upon his release:

“Each of them had determined at the outset to resist, to the uttermost, the dictatorship of Abraham Lincoln.”

“We came out of prison just as we had gone in, holding the same just scorn and detestation the despotism under which the country was prostrate, and with a stronger resolution than ever to oppose it by every means to which, as American freemen, we had the right to resort.”

All the information and quotations about Francis Key Howard were taken from the book, The American Bastille by John A. Marshall; Philadelphia, 1881;
Thomas W. Hartley Co. reprinted by the Crown Rights Book Co ., describes (in 767 pages) the false arrests of innocent citizens during Lincoln’s dictatorship, and their ordeal in the different prisons around the North.

Francis Key Howard wrote a detailed account about his arrest and imprisonment and appeals to the Lincoln Government for release.

[Pikachu_Dad]

I gather that he did not like Lincoln.

This author posts what he said on his arrest and on his release. Still nothing on what he said before. But with these sentiments, it would be easy to suppose that he had posted some scathing commentary on President Lincoln during the period from the riots to his arrest.

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‘When I looked out in the morning, I could not help being struck by an odd and not pleasant coincidence. On that day, forty-seven years before, my grandfather, Mr. F. S. Key, the prisoner on a British ship, had witnessed the bombardment of Ft. McHenry. When on the following morning the hospital fleet drew off, defeated, he wrote the song so long popular throughout the country, the Star Spangled Banner. As I stood upon the very scene of that conflict, I could not but contrast my position with his, forty-seven years before. The flag which he had then so proudly hailed, I saw waving at the same place over the victims of as vulgar and brutal a despotism as modern times have witnessed.”

When he was finally released on November 27, 1862 he wrote:

“We came out of prison just as we had gone in, holding the same just scorn and detestation [for] the despotism under which the country was prostrate, and with a stronger resolution that ever to oppose it by every means to which, as American freemen, we had the right to resort.”

http://brocktownsend.forum5.com/viewtopic.php?p=94&mforum=brocktownsend

[Pikachu_Dad]

Okay, here they claim that he criticized Lincoln’s decision to ‘invade the South’.

“One victim of Lincoln’s suppression of Northern newspapers was Francis Key Howard of Baltimore, the grandson of Francis Scott Key. Howard was imprisoned in Fort McHenry, the very spot where his grandfather composed “The Star Spangled Banner,” after the newspaper he edited criticized Lincoln’s decision to invade the South without the consent of Congress...”

http://www.321gold.com/editorials/mathid/mathid081308.html

[TLI]

Still nothing on what he said before.

It appears that, according to Lincoln himself, he need not have said anything at all.

" In his defense of his actions Lincoln stated that “...the public safety does require the suspension.” “Arrests by process of courts and arrests in cases of rebellion do not proceed altogether upon the same basis....In the latter case the arrests are made not so much for what has been done, as for what probably would be done.”

The One probably will not have to actually do anything. The Cobamunists will handle it for The One. The One will merely speak high praise of someone while invoking the Holy Hand Signal.

[incredulous joe]

Gee whiz, if this story is only breaking now then I guess it is fair to say that FSK’s grasndson was a Dem?

[TLI]

Great references. Thanks!

[Fiji Hill]

I visited Fort McHenry on the way home from CPAC earlier this year. Civil War-era guns are still in place at the fort should anyone dare to attack Baltimore.

[count-your-change]

You should warn readers that this thread may offend some Lincoln worshippers.

[mass55th]

Francis Scott Key’s son, Phillip Barton Key was shot and killed in 1859 by Dan Sickles (later Civil War General who lost his leg at Gettysburg). Key was a U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. Sickles was a member of Congress (D-NY). Sickles, quite the ladies man himself, had learned that Key was having a very public affair with his young wife. Sickles shot and killed Key in Lafayette Park, which is just across the street from the White House, and just outside the Sickles home. Sickles was arrested and tried for murder. His attorney Edwin M. Stanton (later Sec. of War under Lincoln), successfully presented the defense of temporary insanity, and Sickles was acquitted. It was the first time in American history that a temporary insanity defense had been used, and Sickles was the first man in America to be acquitted under it. Sickles forgave his wife, but from what I understand, he forced her to write a letter of apology to him, which he insisted be published by the Washington press.

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

if the story is about Key’s faith, the writer should have led with that and not with the arrest of the grandson

I think that this has sxomething to do with the fact that the original title to this article is "Christian faith key to 'Banner'", and not the title improperly listed by the poster.

[Pikachu_Dad]

Slightly different claim in this article.

“Howard wrote an editorial criticizing the Lincoln administration’s imprisonment of the city and state officials from Baltimore and Maryland without due process, and soon found himself joining them at Fort McHenry.”

http://www.thecivilwaromnibus.com/articles/94

[Pikachu_Dad]

“It appears that, according to Lincoln himself, he need not have said anything at all.”

Agreed.

But in this case, he probably did write something.

He was after all a newspaper editor, apparently with Southern sympathies or at least anti-Lincoln sympathies.

Found two reports that he did write a critical article with regards to Lincoln’s arrests of citizens.

It also appears that to get out, they only had to swear an oath of allegiance to the Union.

[TLI]

But in this case, he probably did write something.

Apparently there was no lack of raw material to work with.

It also appears that to get out, they only had to swear an oath of allegiance to the Union.

To some folks swearing an oath has meaning.

Some folks recognize that it has meaning to others.

Some folks will never have a clue what giving their word means.

I believe The One, Hussein the Magnificent, falls into the last category. He will not have a clue why everyone will turn against him except the nearly useless and the utterly insane.