On September 14, 1814, Francis Scott Key penned the Star-Spangled Banner which is set to the British tune, “To Anacreon in Heaven.” In 1931, President Herbert Hoover officially designated the poem as our national anthem.
The story behind it perfectly represents the American spirit which is why so many on the Left want it gone.
The poem was written about the British attack on Baltimore during the War of 1812, a war – if lost – that would have left us back under the control of the British monarchy.
Key was sent to negotiate a prisoner release aboard the British flagship HMS Tonnant. As he negotiated with British Vice Admiral Alexander Cochrane, he overheard the plans for the attack. As a result, the British held him captive until after the assault on Fort McHenry.
The attack ended on the morning of September 14, 1814.
As the British bombed Fort McHenry, Key watched helplessly, but as the sun rose, key saw the American flag still flying over the fort. In fact, the Americans replaced the smaller flag with a much larger one.
Old Glory flew with its fifteen stars and fifteen stripes.
Key was moved to put his poem to paper, which he first named “Defence of Fort M’Henry.” It was later called “The Star-Spangled Banner” and was immensely popular in the new republic. It was played at Independence Day celebrations and in 1916, Woodrow Wilson ordered it played by the military.
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In 1930, the Veterans of Foreign Wars started a petition to recognize it as our national anthem. The next year, it was our anthem.
In 1956, Congress embraced the fourth verse of Key’s poem and adopted “In God We Trust” as our national motto.
The third stanza the Left is trying to say is racist had nothing to do with American slaves.
The lines the Left has problems with reads, “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.”
The line refers to the men impressed into service on British ships. The American navy was proudly comprised of volunteers while the British had to pay or enslave their sailors. This slavery had nothing to do with race.
Check out the third and fourth stanzas. It’s a beautiful song:
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 rocket’s red glare, the bomb 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 in 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 havoc 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 footstep’s 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.
Have a wonderful INDEPENDENCE DAY!
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