America--history of the anthem

 

June 14 commemorates both the founding of the American Army and Flag day. The 2^nd Continental Congress approved an Army on June 14, 1775 to defend the 13 colonies against British abuses.  Through reorganizations of the Articles of Confederation and then the Constitution, the Army continued and is the oldest branch of the Department of Defense.  Flag Day commemorates the adoption of the flag of the United States on June 14, 1777 by resolution of the Second Continental Congress. But the era which brought these dates to prominence were enormously celebrated was a period after the War of 1812, called The Era of Good Feeling.  The name is an understatement. Americans had just won a war against the greatest power on earth, unassisted by allies, and it was a crazy win.  Ft. McHenry of Baltimore had held against all odds and Francis Scott Key had written his stirring poem that would later become the national anthem. Disease and a hurricane had driven the British from Washington. Jackson had made a defense near New Orleans with mostly 4000 common citizens and a few pirates and beat back an invasion fleet with 10,000 British regulars fresh from defeating Napoleon.  And it came as the 2^nd Great Awakening of Christian faith thanked God’s unbelievable grace for leaving USA independent, the only republic in the world. When Jefferson and Adams died the same day, July 4, 1826, the 50^th anniversary of Independence, it was hailed as providential.  Daniel Webster spoke in Boston commemorating their lives as “an American Constellation in the heavens.”

            Rev. Samuel Francis Smith heard that speech.  He was a seminary student at Andover Theological Seminary.  He was later reading some German patriotic hymns and got the idea to compose one for the United States.  “Seizing a scrap of waste paper I began to write, and in half an hour, I think, the words stood upon it, substantially as they are sung today.”  The tune of the Royal British national anthem, “God Save the King” was impudently appropriated for America.

1.“My Country! ‘tis of thee,                     4.Our fathers’ God! To Thee,

            Sweet Land of Liberty,                           Author of Liberty,

            Of thee I sing.                                       To Thee we sing.

            Land where my fathers died,                  Long may our land be bright                 

            Land of the pilgrims’ pride,                    With freedom’s holy light;

            From every mountainside                       Protect us by Thy might,

            Let freedom ring!                                   Great God, our King!

Part of the magic of this song is that Smith wrote it in first person singular, “my country”.  A classmate of Smith’s at Harvard, Oliver Wendell Holmes, went on to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Years later, he wrote, “What is Fame? It is to write a hymn which sixty million people [then US population] sing, like Samuel Smith did.”

            Jackson’s victory day, January 8 was commemorated Second Independence Day and singing of America became the common practice.”When you hear it played on the piano, it feels like a hymn…with an orchestra it becomes regal and majestic. ” ‘My Country ‘Tis Of Thee’ is really about putting, not a monarch, but the nation itself and God’s guidance at the center of our imaginative lives.”—country music artist, Tim McGraw.  At the Union Camp Saxton, 1862, Smith’s hymn was the first thing sung by freed slaves when Emancipation was proclaimed. It was the last thing sung to dying soldiers among TR’s Rough Riders in Cuba, 1898.  It gave Martin Luther King his peroration at the March on Washington, 1963. But best of all, it’s a reminder to all who sing it, that USA was born of ideas, chief among which was dependence on God’s Grace.