Click on the title to link to a YouTube film clip of the song John Brown's Body.
In this series, presented under the headline “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here.
Markin comment:
The Union armies as they headed South, especially the Massachusetts regiments, used this as their marching song. So a man who a little more than a year earlier was the subject of widespread scorn, North and South, except among hardened abolitionists and their supporters "led" the great climatic struggle against American slavery after all.
John Brown's Body
Information Lyrics
The tune was originally a camp-meeting hymn Oh brothers, will you meet us on Canaan's happy shore? It evolved into this tune. In 1861 Julia Ward Howe wife of a government official, wrote a poem for Atlantic Monthly for five dollars. The magazine called it, Battle Hymn of the Republic. The music may be by William Steffe. John Brown's body lies a-mold'ring in the grave
John Brown's body lies a-mold'ring in the grave
John Brown's body lies a-mold'ring in the grave
His soul goes marching on
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
His soul is marching on
He captured Harper's Ferry with his nineteen men so true
He frightened old Virginia till she trembled
through and through
They hung him for a traitor, themselves the traitor crew
His soul is marching on
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
His soul is marching on
John Brown died that the slave might be free,
John Brown died that the slave might be free,
John Brown died that the slave might be free,
But his soul is marching on!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
His soul is marching on
The stars above in Heaven are looking kindly down
The stars above in Heaven are looking kindly down
The stars above in Heaven are looking kindly down
On the grave of old John Brown
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory, Glory! Hallelujah!
His soul is marching on
Information and lyrics from
Best Loved Songs of the American People
See Bibliography for full information.
Showing posts with label anti-slavery struggle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anti-slavery struggle. Show all posts
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Saturday, February 12, 2011
In Honor Of Abraham Lincoln’s Birthday- Now He Belongs To The Ages- Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Abraham Lincoln- “Team Of Rivals: Abraham Lincoln's Political Genuis”- A Book Review
Book Review
Team Of Rivals: Abraham Lincoln's Poltical Genuis, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Simon &Schuster, New York, 2005
One would think as we celebrate, and rightly so, Abraham Lincoln’s birthday that everything that needs to be said about the man has been written, and written in profusion and to exhaustion. I believe that fact is essentially true, although that has not stopped all and sundry from taking a shot at reformulating, or “uncovering” the “real” Lincoln as the fairly recent attempts to win Lincoln for the “Homintern” (the English poet W.H. Auden’s term, not mine) on the question of his sexual preferences indicates. That said, after reading Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team Of Rivals it is apparent that there are reformulations and there are reformulations. Here Ms. Goodwin has gathered much material that I have seen in other sources and tells a very interesting and detailed politically-etched story about the way that Abraham Lincoln was able to use his sharply-honed skills to weld together a presidential cabinet that, with few defections and fewer resignations, ran the Unionist side in the American Civil War. For those already familiar with battles, military victories and personalities, and grand strategies this is a very good inside look at the mechanics of how the Union victory was won. If that fight was a close thing at times it was not Lincoln’s lack of ability to stay the course and to push the fight forward that was to blame.
As I mentioned above most of the material used here, including many of the humorous (1860s humorous) anecdotes and parables that Lincoln was famous for, have seen the light of day in other sources, especially in poet and fellow Illinoisan Carl Sandburg’s old time multi-volume study. Where Ms. Goodwin shines is on the information about the fight for the formation of the Republican Party in the 1850s and in chronicling Lincoln’s almost compulsive desire from early on to mark his name in the stars. The struggle to create that new party, and the sketches of the men that were drawn to it, including Lincoln, out of the divergent political tendencies that were coming apart in the tradition Whig and Northern Democratic parties as a result of the pressures of the slavery question represented some of the most interesting parts of the book. The mix and matches of personalities and divergent political backgrounds that came together and formed its core, men like William Seward, Montgomery Blair, and Simon Chase joined by Unionist Democrats and Whigs like Edwin Stanton and Edward Bates, were those that Lincoln had to work with in order to form a coalition, a popular front if you like, that held together under his authority to get the necessary job done.
There has been some recent controversy over the question of Lincoln’s racial views and whether he was, personally, a racist or not. While that question is more germane than the once concerning his sexual preferences I believe that Ms. Goodwin has put paid to that question by her narrative. Clearly Lincoln, as he entered the presidency, had the typical racial views of his times, his white man’s times, no question. In that sense Seward, and more so, Chase held more “advanced” views and were more comfortable with working with blacks. The beauty of Lincoln, as a kicking and screaming late covert to “high” abolitionist positions is that he was able to transcend his own personal views.
In that sense Ms. Goodwin, however, may have underestimated the influence that the “team” had on Lincoln’s racial views, as they meshed together to turn what started as a straight up, although still historically important, struggle for the Union to the more important struggle to break slavery as a reputable modern form of servitude. The ups and downs of that struggle to focus the fight on abolition form the core of this book. If you are not familiar, beyond the general high school or college history books, on the subject of the American Civil War and you are not desperate to know, in detail, every battle, skirmish, and mere looking mean at each other across every picket line, or every military commander, drunk or sober, or much about what was happening politically on the Confederate side once the war started this book is for you. And if you want to have a well written political narrative of the hows and whys of Lincoln’s growing political authority during the Civil War and understand why War Minister Stanton’s statement after his assassination “now he belongs to the ages” rings true you had better read this one.
Team Of Rivals: Abraham Lincoln's Poltical Genuis, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Simon &Schuster, New York, 2005
One would think as we celebrate, and rightly so, Abraham Lincoln’s birthday that everything that needs to be said about the man has been written, and written in profusion and to exhaustion. I believe that fact is essentially true, although that has not stopped all and sundry from taking a shot at reformulating, or “uncovering” the “real” Lincoln as the fairly recent attempts to win Lincoln for the “Homintern” (the English poet W.H. Auden’s term, not mine) on the question of his sexual preferences indicates. That said, after reading Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team Of Rivals it is apparent that there are reformulations and there are reformulations. Here Ms. Goodwin has gathered much material that I have seen in other sources and tells a very interesting and detailed politically-etched story about the way that Abraham Lincoln was able to use his sharply-honed skills to weld together a presidential cabinet that, with few defections and fewer resignations, ran the Unionist side in the American Civil War. For those already familiar with battles, military victories and personalities, and grand strategies this is a very good inside look at the mechanics of how the Union victory was won. If that fight was a close thing at times it was not Lincoln’s lack of ability to stay the course and to push the fight forward that was to blame.
As I mentioned above most of the material used here, including many of the humorous (1860s humorous) anecdotes and parables that Lincoln was famous for, have seen the light of day in other sources, especially in poet and fellow Illinoisan Carl Sandburg’s old time multi-volume study. Where Ms. Goodwin shines is on the information about the fight for the formation of the Republican Party in the 1850s and in chronicling Lincoln’s almost compulsive desire from early on to mark his name in the stars. The struggle to create that new party, and the sketches of the men that were drawn to it, including Lincoln, out of the divergent political tendencies that were coming apart in the tradition Whig and Northern Democratic parties as a result of the pressures of the slavery question represented some of the most interesting parts of the book. The mix and matches of personalities and divergent political backgrounds that came together and formed its core, men like William Seward, Montgomery Blair, and Simon Chase joined by Unionist Democrats and Whigs like Edwin Stanton and Edward Bates, were those that Lincoln had to work with in order to form a coalition, a popular front if you like, that held together under his authority to get the necessary job done.
There has been some recent controversy over the question of Lincoln’s racial views and whether he was, personally, a racist or not. While that question is more germane than the once concerning his sexual preferences I believe that Ms. Goodwin has put paid to that question by her narrative. Clearly Lincoln, as he entered the presidency, had the typical racial views of his times, his white man’s times, no question. In that sense Seward, and more so, Chase held more “advanced” views and were more comfortable with working with blacks. The beauty of Lincoln, as a kicking and screaming late covert to “high” abolitionist positions is that he was able to transcend his own personal views.
In that sense Ms. Goodwin, however, may have underestimated the influence that the “team” had on Lincoln’s racial views, as they meshed together to turn what started as a straight up, although still historically important, struggle for the Union to the more important struggle to break slavery as a reputable modern form of servitude. The ups and downs of that struggle to focus the fight on abolition form the core of this book. If you are not familiar, beyond the general high school or college history books, on the subject of the American Civil War and you are not desperate to know, in detail, every battle, skirmish, and mere looking mean at each other across every picket line, or every military commander, drunk or sober, or much about what was happening politically on the Confederate side once the war started this book is for you. And if you want to have a well written political narrative of the hows and whys of Lincoln’s growing political authority during the Civil War and understand why War Minister Stanton’s statement after his assassination “now he belongs to the ages” rings true you had better read this one.
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