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:
The "song" does that? How does a song prove something?
"Maryland, my Maryland" says that Lincoln was a tyrant. Does that song prove he was a tyrant?
The Civil War was indirectly about slavery. Slaves produced the money that powered 3/4ths of the US Government at the time, including their subsidies paid to Northern "crony capitalist" businessmen who were getting government contracts to build stuff up there.
Slaves also produced the bulk of the trade with Europe, and so long as the New York/Washington cartel controlled that trade and got their vigorish out of it, they were content to keep slavery as a permanent institution, ala the Corwin Amendment.
The one thing the were not going to allow is for the South to trade directly with Europe, become more capitalized, and compete with their industries, as well as compete with them for the economies and political alliance of the western states.
Money and Power. It's always about money and power.
The last stanza includes this statement: As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free!
This lends credence to the off-heard claim that the north was “fighting to free the slaves.”
Here's the problem with that: the US constitution enshrined slavery when the document was ratified by the slave states, and erstwhile slave states, of New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Delaware, and Maryland.
I think there were others. Yes, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia also voted to include slavery in the Constitution.
If anyone took up the bayonet to overthrow slavery, they were taking up arms to overthrow the US constitution. There is a word for that.
Too bad the north didn't overthrow slavery peacefully with a constitutional amendment. Before the war. It would have avoided some hard feelings. And over a half-million dead.
That’s right. I live in King county Washington. It is the 13th most populous county in the United states but its politics are completely manhandled by Seattle proper. Most of the rest of the county votes pubbie but our voices are smothered by the SeattLunatics.
The US Constitution doesn’t “enshrine” slavery. The word isn’t even mentioned, except in their emancipation.
Very good historical point. The North broke the Constitutional agreement.
Slavery was certainly one of the bones of contention that started the civil war. If it was not the central mission at the beginning of the war, the North certainly came to demand it by war’s end.
The county map is a very interesting one.
If you look, you may find that the seashore of Red counties is larger than that of the Blue counties.
So you'd agree it's not even about "coasts versus interior" but simply "more versus less urbanized"?
Plus an allowance for some minority populations in Southern & Western states.
The word “enshrine” is another word for “include.”
Look it up.
“If it was not the central mission at the beginning of the war, the North certainly came to demand it by war’s end.”
There is still confusion over who fought for and against what.
We know: The Confederate States had slaves. And the United States had slaves.
The Confederate States had a constitution that enshrined slavery. And the United States had a constitution that enshrined slavery.
The Confederate States had a president that took an oath to defend its pro-slavery constitution. And the United States had a president that (twice) took an oath to defend its pro-slavery constitution.
After the emancipation proclamation, only one of the two presidents added a slave state to his nation.
The safest thing to say is that both nations fought for what they considered their own economic and political best self-interests.
I did. No it isn't. Distant relations perhaps but not synonyms.
“No it isn’t”
Yes it is.
preserve (a right, tradition, or idea) in a form that ensures it will be protected and respected:
“the right of all workers to strike was enshrined in the new constitution”
synonyms: preserve · entrench · set down · lay down · set in stone · embody · incorporate · contain · include · treasure · immortalize · cherish
None of which apply to slavery.
DiogenesLamp: "The "song" does that?
How does a song prove something? "
When you pro-Confederates pretend the Civil War "was not about slavery", by that you mean neither side fought to defend or defeat slavery, right?
This song puts the lie to your claims.
DiogenesLamp: " 'Maryland, my Maryland' says that Lincoln was a tyrant.
Does that song prove he was a tyrant?"
No, but it certainly does prove there were plenty of pro-Confederates in Maryland.
DiogenesLamp: "The Civil War was indirectly about slavery."
I've never seen a pro-Confederate acknowledge that before, but knowing DiogenesLamp it's only so you can add support to your own ludicrous historical theories, right?
DiogenesLamp: "Slaves produced the money that powered 3/4ths of the US Government at the time, including their subsidies paid to Northern 'crony capitalist' businessmen who were getting government contracts to build stuff up there."
And there it is: DiogenesLamp will quickly confess that slavery had "something" to do with Civil War, but only so he can linger the longer on his favorite misrepresentation of history: "Northeastern power brokers" (aka: "Northern 'crony capitalist' businessmen," aka: "New York/Washington cartel ") are to blame for every-every-every-thing, right?
Ignoring the fact that these globalist businesses were Democrats before 1861 and Democrats after 1865, DL wishes to claim such evil-doers were somehow the masters of Republicans like Abraham Lincoln.
DiogenesLamp: "The one thing the were not going to allow is for the South to trade directly with Europe, become more capitalized, and compete with their industries, as well as compete with them for the economies and political alliance of the western states.
Money and Power.
It's always about money and power."
Except that most Republicans in 1861 cared nothing about your Democrat "Northeastern bower brokers" and their erstwhile Southern Democrat Slave-Power allies.
What Republicans of the time did care about was the United States and slavery, as Howe's song amply demonstrates.
I’ve seen these Civil War threads for the 16 years I’ve been on FR, and stayed mostly off them due to the rancor they inspire (now the reason I mostly stay off the Religion threads too but still fail on occasion there). I thought I’d add a comment though because something has struck me this morning in this conversation about the economics of it all. I really do think it all comes down to money.
First, I don’t think it can be questioned that the war initially started because of slavery. I say this because the South was (and I guess even today arguably is) the main source of wealth creation in the country. So why would the North dare to start a war with the South over any issue, if it wasn’t for a very good reason. Slavery must have been the main reason it was started because economically speaking it wasn’t a good move at all for the North to go to war with the South.
With that said, before all Dixie-lovers get in a tizzy, let me also say that slavery may have been the reason it started, but the reason it continued and how it ended had little to do with slavery, for the same reason (economics). When the war ended, and the North had won, if the North really was all about the Constitution and respected it, as part of the terms the North would have said, “You can remain a Confederate, you just can’t have slavery anymore”. That is, if the North really was only interested in the slavery issue. But clearly it wasn’t.
It was then (and obviously even now) more interested in keeping the States united under control of a Federal Government, and so trampled over the rights of the States to decide their own independent fate. It was so motivated then (and again arguably now) because of again money. It needed the economic engine of the South to survive, so forced the South back into the United States of America, thus ruining the original intent of Federalism, which was to only have a limited Federal Government whose only job was to provide for a common defense. Not to collect taxes and manage the affairs of the States with those taxes.
So for these reasons, it seems all regularly involved in these Civil War threads are both right (or both wrong depending how one looks at it I guess). The War started because of slavery but ended with a desire to increase Federal power.
IMO of course.
I write all of this as a 100% “Yankee”. I’ve never spent more than a couple weeks down in the South on vacations (but love the food and the people there).
I would suggest that Cleburne and Gist played a part in their own demise.
A rather idiotic suggestion, given the times. There were 15 slave states. If they had not ratified it would have taken 31 states voting to ratify. Do the math.
“A rather idiotic suggestion, given the times. There were 15 slave states. If they had not ratified it would have taken 31 states voting to ratify. Do the math.”
In other words, the northern states did not have the votes.
Did not have the votes to peacefully amend the constitution.
Did not have the votes to peacefully overthrow the slavery provisions that the northern states earlier enshrined in the US constitution.
And lacking the votes, northern states did the next best thing - took up an army to overthrow the constitution’s slavery provisions, often popularized “as He died to make men holy let us die to make men free.”
Northern states taking up an army to overthrow the US constitution had an added benefit - the opportunity to destroy - kill you might say - economic and political rivals in the south.
“None of which apply to slavery.”
I’m not able to follow your thinking here.
Wrong. Lacking the votes the north, under Buchanan and carried forward by Lincoln, did nothing until attacked by the rebels.
Your attempts to distort by broad-brush noted, you would have us believe that there was some sort of concerted effort toward national emancipation. There wasn't. Northern states had largely resolved the issue internally (state by state) through legislation. In their view how the southern state conducted their affairs was their own business.
A state of detente have been achieved between slave states and free states, there was no urgency to do anything more until the southern fire-eaters launched their Civil War against the north.
If what you say is true - and you make a fair case - then we can dismiss the notion that the north was fighting for some high moral cause like “freeing the slaves.”
The slogan, “as he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free” can more rightly be seen - if you are correct - as a “moral” pretext for war by the north.
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