Thread by @jeffersonmorley

The @nytimes review of a new book on the Star Spangled Banner is admiring while @washingntonpost is more skeptical about F.S. Key than the author. What the reviews don’t quite capture is impact of the Banner on the politics of slavery. #4THJULY thread.
washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/0…

1/In 1833 President Andrew Jackson appointed Key to be District Attorney for the City of Washington. Jackson wanted to deploy Key’s fame and liberal reputation in service of enforcing the slavery system. An ambitious man, Key obliged. #4THJULY

2/In 1834, Key prosecuted Benjamin Lundy, a courageous itinerant editor, who brought his antislavery publication to Washington DC. Lundy was actually acquitted of “seditious libel” but had to leave town under the threat of violence from the slavers. #4THJULY

3/ Key prosecuted Thomas Cary, a free man of color whose brother ran a barbershop at 6th & Pennsylvania. Cary was an outspoken abolitionist. He had to leave DC for Toronto. It was in Cary’s home that John Brown first broached the idea of raising an anti-slavery army. #4THJULY

4/The burgeoning abolitionist movement of the 1830s mocked Key for his hypocrisy in enforcing the slave trade in the nation’s capital. “Land of the Free/Home of the Oppressed” declared the American Anti-Slavery Society in this 1836 broadsheet. #4THJULY

5/This claim in the NYT review --
"When Congress proclaimed the song America’s official national anthem in 1931, almost 120 years after its composition, it was acknowledging a battle that had been won long before"
is a fine specimen on whitewashing. #4THJULY

6/ Actually, the Banner was the subject of culture war throughout the 1920s.As I show in this piece, the moving force behind the designation were neo-Confederates who said the Confederate flag qualified as a Star Spangled Banner. #4THJULY
thedailybeast.com/star-spangled-…

So celebrate our national holiday in this dire moment by learning our nation's real history. For the whole story of Key, the Banner, and the politics of slavery, read my book Snow-Storm in August. Happy #4THJULY
amazon.com/Snow-Storm-Aug…