The ugly reason ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ didn’t become our national anthem for a century

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Yes, this is indeed one of the other verses of the Star Spangled Banner. However, it most likely has nothing to do with slavery. The phrase “hireling and slave” was a common phrase of that time period, used as an insult here against the British troops. As for Francis Scott Key, he was a mixed bag on slavery/issues of race. I won’t get into it here, but he definitely was not a slavery-loving individual. I encourage those interested to do some real research on him.

Here’s a video with some brief information on the Star Spangled Banner:


May God bless you all! 🙂
 
Well, history can be ugly… yes. In fact, look around… more ugly history is being made right now! And more will be made soon. Interesting info, thanks!
 
Nepperhan said:
Isn’t it nice to know the whole history? The truth is the light and stuff like that?
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The article is interesting - I never knew that about our national anthem and its historical context- but WaPo looks rather pathetic trying to put out something “edgy.”

The headline is also grossly misleading. Racism is not the reason why it took a century for the Star Spangled Banner a century to become the national anthem. It’s not like citizens of an already racist country were saying, “No! Don’t make that our national anthem! It’s sooooo racist!” It was already the military’s anthem before Woodrow Wilson declared it the national anthem years later.
 
blackforest said:
It was already the military’s anthem before Woodrow Wilson declared it the national anthem years later.
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The article says that the Hoover administration had it declared the national anthem in the thirties.
 
If it’s “a verse nobody ever sings and the vast majority of people have never heard of,” then should there be any difficulty replacing or modifying it? Does the same apply to the anthem itself?

About revisionism, my understanding is that African-Americans fought for both sides but for the same reason. If that’s a revisionist view, then what would be a non-revisionist one? That both sides merely used them for their own purposes?
 
The points raised are asides. From what I know, long before 1812 the British were promoting dissent among slaves, which is why the colony established slave patrols, among others. But the repetition of “the land of the free and the home of the brave” in the lyrics stresses the point that in such a land and home there can be no hirelings and slaves.

Thus, this doesn’t show that the anthem or its poet are racist but that the verse is glaring when seen in light of what’s repeated.
 
ralfyman said:
If it’s “a verse nobody ever sings and the vast majority of people have never heard of,” then should there be any difficulty replacing or modifying it?
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If by “it” you mean the last stanza, that is already lost in the mists of time.

If by “it” you mean the song, I suspect that there are a large number of people prefer the song as the national anthem.

It has become de rigueur that anything and just about everything the Left does not like is labeled “racist”. Having been in Vietnam and being an observer, I am well aware of what racism is - and like murder, robbery, adultery and the rest of issues humans do, it is a sin.

And like all other serious sin we need to combat it; and like all other sin, it will be wiped out at the Second Coming, and not before. I am not trying to make light of it, but the unadulterated bs which is being slung around - including such delusional statements as “only whites can be racist”, it is not serving to solve problems, but is being used as a weapon to beat people down. Just because someone with a placard screams that there is institutional racism does not prove anything other than that those who lack the facility to think critically and those who are running on pure emotion currently have the microphone.

But having the microphone and screaming lies does not make them into truths. And reducing history to tearing down anything which offends people is not going to make anyone a better person, nor is it going to change that history. We have a lot of people who fail to understand the maxim “He who fails to learn from history is bound to repeat it”, and they are repeating it with a vengeance.
 
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“It” refers to the verse. I don’t know how it got lost, as it can be seen in many sites online.

Also, this isn’t so much a “Left” thing but the context of the anthem, unless you’re implying that there were no more slaves by 1814.
 
Hmmm. Here in Australia we had a poll in the 1980s (I think) on a new national anthem to replace ‘God Save The Queen’.

The two most popular choices were 'Waltzing Matilda" whose lyrics are about a sheep.thief who gets cornered by police.and commits suicide to avoid capture, (most unsuutable) and ‘Advance Australia Fair’, which had a verse extolling the virtues of England and ending with the line “Britannia rules the wave”.

Being the pragmatists we are, we voted for it as our anthem, consigned the troublesome verse to the dustbin of history and got on with our lives. I doubt most Aussies know or care about that verse’s existence let alone making a fuss over it in 200 years time.
 
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Oh yeah? Well, To Anacreon in Heaven is a bawdy, raucous drinking song that mentions “crackers”, so everyone knows that the National Anthem is rotten to the core.

And some people are still bitter, 200 years later.

I am glad we have some nice patriotic threads to amuse us as Election Day approaches. I feel the pride swelling in my breast and a joyous tear forming in my eye even now.
 
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Anesti33 said:
Oh yeah? Well, To Anacreon in Heaven is a bawdy, raucous drinking song that mentions “crackers”, so everyone knows that the National Anthem is rotten to the core.

And some people are still bitter, 200 years later.

I am glad we have some nice patriotic threads to amuse us as Election Day approaches. I feel the pride swelling in my breast and a joyous tear forming in my eye even now.
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Well, the hymn “Pange Lingua” is apparently based on the tune of a bawdy, raucous military marching song from the time of Julius Caesar.

Tunes get recycled and gentrified all the time. And by the sane token genteel classical melodies also .get made over into trashy pop toons al the time.

Nothing to see here.
 
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My reference to the “Left” is the current revolution ongoing in the streets and the media, as well as in academia, which is engaged in an extremely divisive set of theories, most of which are on the extreme left.

I was a young adult when the dogs and the water cannons were being used on the civil rights marchers, so it is not as if I am unaware of recent history. And what I am watching now likely has MLK spinning in his grave.

As an aside, I had never heard of the verse in any conversations or media.
 
otjm said:
It has become de rigueur that anything and just about everything the Left does not like is labeled “racist”.
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Well, if you look closely, no where in the report is the anthem called ‘racist’. I don’t know if I have heard a leftist label it as such. Conservatives sometimes go overboard in denying the presence of racism, however.

The report states: "And even if these lyrics aren’t meant to be explicitly racist, Key clearly was. "

That seems a pretty neutral statement about the anthem and it is a comment on Key’s life and writings.
 
My comment is less about the article than it is about what is occurring currently in our cities. I am all for a rational discussion discussion of issues, but currently we are in an irrational mode being generated by issues which have been brewing, in particular, in academia which are irrational or at least have extremely minimal, if any evidence to support them, including a list starting with intersectionality, critical race theory, and a host of other sound bites directed not at actually addressing racism, but in driving a narrative of the leaders of several movements who are openly admitting they are Marxist.

The article may or may not be part of the near hysteria on the street - an hysteria exemplified by the toppling of statues first of Confederate individuals, and more recently of individuals who were in fact anti-racist. It simply would not surprise me if the drive, of which I have heard mentioned repeatedly, to rid ourselves of the anthem (and yes, it is a difficult one to sing).

And I will get off my soap box.
 
Nepperhan said:
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Tis_Bearself:
So, based on a verse nobody ever sings and the vast majority of people have never heard of, it’s racist.

Right, in someone’s revisionist history book. Not buying into this nonsense.
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You know, I put out facts I was unaware of. The item happens to be additional details, not any revision of history. Do you have a problem with finding out details?

Your response sounds awfully defensive to me.
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Being defensive is the new capital sin.
 
Don’t forget the rifle racks on trucks and a Gadsden flag flying free in the breeze.
 
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