[First a little introduction. The War of 1812 was fought between the British and their allies and the Americans and their allies. The British burned the White House down and took American prisoners. Francis Scott Key, a descendant of plantation slaveholders and brother in law of Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney of Dred Scott fame, was a lawyer who represented “individual colored people in court.” According to Jefferson Morley, author of Snow Storm in August: The Struggle for American Freedom and Washington’s Race Riot of 1835, Key described black people as “a distinct and inferior race of people, which all experience proves to be the greatest evil that afflicts a community.” Key became the district attorney for Washington D.C. under the Andrew Jackson administration and spent his tenure enforcing slave laws and prosecuting abolitionists. He was taken prisoner by the British and watched the bombardment of Baltimore from the deck of a British warship. It was this bombardment and the morning after which inspired “The Defence of Fort M’Henry” which later became known as “The Star Spangled Banner.”]
By Gillian Brockell Oct. 18, 2020 at 7:30 a.m. EDT
[O]ne of the main issues was the British practice of impressment — the forced conscription of American sailors to fight for the Royal Navy. Plus, the British promised refuge to any enslaved Black people who escaped their enslavers, raising fears among White Americans of a large-scale revolt (emphasis added). The final provocation was that men who escaped their bonds of slavery were welcome to join the British Corps of Colonial Marines in exchange for land after their service. As many as 4,000 people, mostly from Virginia and Maryland, escaped.
“The Defense of Fort M’Henry,” has more than one verse.
Defence of Fort M’Henry
BY FRANCIS SCOTT KEY
O! say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watch’d, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there —
O! say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?
On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines on the stream —
‘Tis the star-spangled banner, O! long may it wave
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havock of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash’d out their foul foot-steps’ pollution,
No refuge could save the hireling and slave,
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave;
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.
O! thus be it ever when freemen shall stand
Between their lov’d home, and the war’s desolation,
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land
Praise the power that hath made and preserv’d us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto — “In God is our trust!”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.
Although “The Star-Spangled Banner” and all of its verses were immediately famous, Key’s overt racism prevented it from becoming the national anthem while he was alive, Morley wrote. There was no official anthem, and many people chose to sing other songs, like “My Country ‘Tis of Thee.”
Key’s anthem gained popularity over time, particularly among post-Reconstruction White Southerners and the military. [G]roups like the United Daughters of the Confederacy fought back, pushing for the song to be made the official national anthem. In 1931, President Herbert Hoover made it so.