First, Remove The Plank In Your Own Eye

A commentary on our so called "civilized society" deriding our past

After this last Independence Day hearing again, the Star-Spangled Banner is a terrible song, (it is difficult to sing), and Francis Scott Key was just another bloodthirsty slave owner who advocated the murder of blacks, I thought it time to address the whole holier than thou nonsense about our American history, the Founders and others who fought and died to create this country in which we live. Don't misunderstand what I am saying. Throughout history, saints have walked among us. All the rest of us are a combination of saint and sinner, most days more sinner than saint! Our “civilized society” has arrogantly come to the conclusion we somehow have a right to judge history by our standards, (which by the way are almost non-existent).

Francis Scott Key

• Born August 1, 1779 and died January 11, 1843

• American lawyer, author, amateur poet and yes, a slave owner.

• Britain was at war with Napoleon and France. America was neutral minding its own business conducting trade with countries in Europe. Britain began attacking American ships, stealing the cargo, kidnapping the sailors and manning their ships with them. This was allegedly to prevent goods from getting to France.

• Despite all the offenses being committed by Britain, America was not eager for another war with Britain. The Northeastern states even considered seceding from the Union, establishing a separate American nation and negotiating a treaty with Britain.

• On the evening of August 24, 1814, British troops torched the Capitol, the Treasury and the President’s House (not yet called the White House). The plan was to continue burning cities starting with Baltimore. Then Philadelphia and New York. Fort McHenry stood in the way.

• On Sept. 13, 1814, after watching Fort McHenry get bombarded all night from hundreds of British ships during the War of 1812, in his amazement that the American flag was still flying over the fort at dawn, he was inspired to write the poem "Defence of Fort M'Henry". It was published within a week with the suggested tune of the popular song "To Anacreon in Heaven", (which was actually a drinking song.)

• From Smithsonian Magazine, Francis Scott Key, the reluctant patriot:

The British launched a withering bombardment of Fort McHenry on a rainy September 13. For much of the onslaught, shells and rockets fell on the fort at the rate of almost one a minute. American major George Armistead, commander of Fort McHenry, estimated that “from fifteen to eighteen hundred shells” were fired during the attack.

It seemed unlikely, Key would later recall, that American resistance at the fort could withstand such a pounding. Not until the mists dissipated at dawn September 14 did he learn the outcome of the battle. “At last,” he later wrote, “a bright streak of gold mingled with crimson shot athwart the eastern sky, followed by another, and still another, as the morning sun rose.” Gradually he was able to discern not the British Union Jack that he had feared, but still, defiantly, an American flag, enormous in its dimensions, fluttering in the breeze from the flagpole of an undefeated Fort McHenry. The fort had not fallen: Baltimore remained safe. It was, he later wrote, a “most merciful deliverance.”

Major Armistead, the fort commander, could take credit for the flag’s spectacular size, 30 by 42 feet. Leaving no detail to chance in his preparations for the fort’s defense, he envisioned a dramatic emblem, commissioning Baltimore flag maker Mary Young Pickersgill to stitch a banner so large that the enemy would “have no difficulty in seeing it from a distance.” Mrs. Pickersgill had duly supplied the massive flag, sewn of wool bunting. Each of its 15 stars was about two feet across; its 15 stripes were about two feet wide.

The infamous third verse

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.

• The “hireling” is pretty much agreed refers to the Hessian mercenaries sent from the German states of Hesse-Kassel and Hesse Hanau, numbering about 30,000 troops and making up about 25% of the British forces.

• The “slave” has a number of interpretations:

  • Black slaves who joined the British, some even recruited by the Hessian in the Southern states.

  • The American sailors on the ships who were held against their will.

  • The Hessians themselves were looked on as slaves by the Americans since the Revolutionary War and pitied, since they had no choice in coming here to fight.

    • 900 Hessian soldiers and officers were taken prisoner by General Washington and the Continental Army following the Battle of Trenton on December 26, 1776.

    • The British and Hessians treated American prisoners brutally. However, after the Hessian prisoners were marched to Philadelphia and paraded through the streets:

Before they were ultimately settled in a barracks. Washington promptly published a proclamation stating that the Hessians were not the enemy. They were forced into the war and should be treated humanely, it said.

• Pulling a quote from of all places, Snopes:

It doesn't appear that Francis Scott Key ever specified what he did mean by the phrase, nor does its context point to a single, definitive interpretation.

Francis Scott Key, the man

What got me thinking about this whole essay were a few discussions I had on Substack in a comment section regarding the Star Spangled Banner and Francis Scott Key. In one, I was told the Star Spangled Banner was a terrible song because it advocated the murder of slaves, and “Keys was a tool of a truly racist administration and served as its henchman against the abolitionist movement.”

This was contradictory to things I had found. If he so reviled blacks:

1) Why would he be the only white mourner in 1842 for the funeral of William Costin, the widely respected leader of the free African-American community in the nation’s capital?

"It “must be admitted,” an abolitionist newspaper commented, “that for a distinguished white citizen of Washington to ride alone among a larger number of colored men in doing honor to the memory of a deceased citizen of color evinces an elevation of soul above the meanness of popular prejudice, highly honorable to Mr. Key’s profession as a friend of men of color. He rode alone.”

2) He had a deserved reputation for providing free legal advice to impoverished free blacks and slaves in Washington.

3) “If ever man was a true friend to the African race, that man was Francis Scott Key,” his friend, the Rev. John T. Brooke, one wrote. “Throughout his own region of the country, he was proverbially the colored man’s friend. He was their standing gratuitous advocate in courts of justice, pressing their rights to the extent of the law, and ready to brave odium or even personal danger in their behalf.”

Jenna Stocker

writes:

He was a slave owner himself but also a lawyer who represented black Americans suing for their freedom, successfully freeing 189 in his legal career and freeing those in his own household.

Today compared to everyday life in Colonial America

• Welfare, Social Security, Medicaid or Medicare.

  • You worked or you died. End of story.

• We were scared and forced into shutting down America over a variation of the flu!

  • The American Revolution was fought in the middle of a small pox epidemic!

• People drive off docks into lakes today following their GPS.

  • People could read a map and use a compass.

• If the power grid goes down, because of the loss of food, lack of heat and/or air conditioning, dead bodies will stack up like cord wood.

  • Our ancestors among many other things, knew how produce food, meat, vegetable, fruit, etc., and keep food from spoiling, find safe drinking water, take down a tree to build a house and have firewood left to cook and heat.

Education

From How Education was Destroyed in America:

The Founders had a profoundly different idea of what it meant to be literate than we do today. The ultimate reason was so that the people could understand and protect the government they created for us.

Up until the late 1800’s a good education in the United States could be obtained without government interference or oversight. Surprisingly, 50 percent of a population of 3 million in 1776 were indentured servants and 20 percent were African slaves.

However, during that time 600,000 copies of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense had been sold in the United States and had been read by countless Americans. The equivalent of 6 million copies today. Definitely a #1 Best Seller.

With a population of about 7 million in 1812, Pierre DuPont wrote in “Education in the United States”, "...that out of every 1,000 persons fewer than four can’t read or do numbers." He attributed this fact to traditional dinner table debates over passages read from the Bible, the most widely available book at the time. In other words, children learned how to read with an understanding of what they were reading and they knew their numbers. All this education took place at home or in one room school houses. The children who came out of these schools grew up to be self reliant and individualistic.

This means 99.6% of the population in America was literate and knew math before a public school system ever existed. George Washington never had any formal schooling! Benjamin Franklin only two years. In addition, what the Founders meant by literate was having familiarity with the great works of science, philosophy, history, poetry, and prose. Having read the Bible, Plato, Aristotle, Locke, Newton, Shakespeare, and being able discuss them intelligently. They knew Latin, Greek, and a number of other languages. In contrast:

About 130 million adults in the U.S. have low literacy skills according to a Gallup analysis of data from the U.S. Department of Education. This means more than half of Americans between the ages of 16 and 74 (54%) read below the equivalent of a sixth-grade level.

Statistics showing 33 percent or our nation’s college graduates can’t read or calculate well enough to perform the jobs they seek while we spend $600 BILLION per year on education in America! That breaks down to about $14,500 PER STUDENT!

• High schools in Chicago, Detroit and Baltimore graduate whole classes that cannot even read!

We hear a lot of talk about equity–giving an extra helping hand to people coming from disadvantaged communities. Well, here is what a helping hand looks like. The city is run by some of the most progressive people in the country, was represented by progressive hero Elijah Cummings and now Kweisi Mfume, and hasn’t had a Republican Mayor since 1967.

In other words, Baltimore is atrocious because of Democrats, and Baltimore public school students are getting shafted by Democrats.

If you want to know what equity means in practice, go to Baltimore. In an armored car. Because the city is in the top 5 in crime rankings in the country.

• In 55 Chicago Public Schools, not one student met grade level expectations in either math or reading during the 2021-2022 school year, according to a Wirepoints report.

• In 23 Baltimore City Schools, zero students tested proficient in math in 2022, according to a report by Project Baltimore.

Because math and reading are “racist”? How ridiculous is that? Actually because highly paid professional teachers are not doing their jobs and getting away with it through the protection of their unions! You would not even think to tolerate such incompetence from your plumber or doctor!

There still is slavery in the world including America

With all the wailing about getting reparations for something that ended at least 160 years ago with over 600,000 casualties and in states where there were never slaves, we inhumanly ignore the slavery that occurs to this day in the world including America!

• There are more slaves in the world right now than any time in human history! More than when slavery was "legal".

• When Obama allowed more than 800,000 " unaccompanied minors" in this country, where did they disappear?

• In addition to the military age men from China, Syria, etc., entering our country by the hundreds of thousands per month, Biden is allowing hundreds of thousands of minor children to be brought in to America! The children recently found working in dangerous meat packing plants are the lucky ones! How many are sex slaves?

• Who is trying to free them? In our Founder's time there were abolitionists, including many of our Founders.

• If they ever do get free, these people absolutely deserve reparations as living human beings horribly wronged!

So what can we as a “civilized society” be proud of?

I think we can be proud we out did one past civilization. The Aztecs believed that the sun would not rise without a human sacrifice. They did this to hundreds of thousands of victims by cutting their beating heart right out of their chest! The Spaniards were horrified and disgusted by the blood and the stench of it on their structures and running in the street! The surrounding tribes that the Aztecs preyed on eagerly helped the “evil” Spaniards destroy the Aztec empire!

WE committed infanticide ON OUR OWN CHILDREN TO THE TUNE OF MORE THAN 63 MILLION BY DISSECTING THEM ALIVE WITHOUT ANAESTHESIA IN THEIR MOTHER'S WOMB! MORE THAN 20 MILLION WERE BLACK BABIES!

We judge slavery and slave owners from 100+ years ago devising ways to get compensated while MILLIONS of slaves, mostly children, are in the world and our country RIGHT NOW with practically no one even caring!

HOW PROUD WE SHOULD BE! How dare we look down on anyone!

Courtesy thefederalistpapers.org