Lincoln’s feelings aren’t hard to understand. “Dixie” is as good as any song that belongs to America. But what was to Lincoln a beautiful melody that had been “fairly captured” has today been marked down by polite society as an anthem of white supremacy and a relic of “Lost Cause” mythology. Indeed, amidst what they’re calling the “reckoning,” a passionate urgency to expunge the Confederacy from history has perhaps never been stronger.
Thursday, January 07, 2021
Commentary: Dooming Lincoln
It’s one of the ironic facts of history that Lincoln was fond of the tune “Dixie.” Following the capture of Richmond in 1865, he instructed the Union band to play it in celebration of the South’s surrender. “I have always thought ‘Dixie’ one of the best tunes I have ever heard. Our adversaries over the way attempted to appropriate it, but I insisted yesterday that we fairly captured it,” he said. “I now request the band to favor me with its performance.”’
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In 1959 my family moved to Ohio. We settled in Mt. Vernon, OH. It was a nice little city with many factories; it was as Middle Class as you could get. It is the birthplace of Daniel Dectur Emmitt, the author of the song Dixie. I remember we sang this song in music class all the time and studied Emmitt. I still fondly sing the song in my head, reliving our time in Ohio. If the powers that be ban Dixie, I will start to sing it out loud to piss them off.
ReplyDeleteKind of funny how many supposedly educated and worldly types on the Right can't grasp basic enemy concepts like Year Zero and Destroying the Four Olds.
ReplyDelete“Destroying the Four Olds“
DeleteExactly right. The commies haven’t changed tactics at all.
Always makes me think of the ferryboat operator in "The Outlaw Josey Wales", where he'd whistle 'Dixie" for southern passengers and "Battle Hymn of the Republic" for the blue troops.
ReplyDeleteKinda like a modern day republican politician.
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The southern part of Utah was called Utah's Dixie early on and cotton was grown there for a time. Dixie State College, later Dixie State University, was eventually started in St. George, Utah, named to celebrate that early heritage. The trustees just recommended that the school be renamed. Any allusion to the south has to be scrubbed, no matter how innocuous. I'm curious as to what name they're eventually going to gin up for that fourth compass point.
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