Friday, March 29, AD 2024 3:57am

Jefferson and Liberty Too

Something for the weekend:  Jefferson and Liberty Too.  The hotly contested election of 1800 brought to the nation many of the trappings of subsequent campaigns including campaign songs.   The most popular was the tune Jefferson and Liberty Too, sung to the tune of Irish jig The Gobby O, which was quite popular in America during the colonial period and thereafter, familiar as a fiddle tune at virtually every ball:

Anonymous


The gloomy night before us flies,

The reign of terror now is o’er;
Its gags, inquisitors, and spies,
Its herds of harpies are no more!

Chorus
Rejoice, Columbia’s sons, rejoice!

To tyrants never bend your knee,
But join with heart, and soul, and voice,
For Jefferson and Liberty!

No lordling here, with gorging jaws

Shall wring from industry the food;
Nor fiery bigot’s holy laws
Lay waste our fields and streets in blood!

Here strangers from a thousand shores

Compelled by tyranny to roam,
Shall find amidst abundant stores,
A nobler and happier home.

Here Art shall lift her laurelled head,

Wealth, Industry, and Peace, divine;
And where dark, pathless forests spread,
Rich fields and lofty cities shine.

From Europe’s wants and woes remote,

A friendly waste of waves between,
Here plenty cheers the humblest cot,
And smiles on every village green.

Here free as air, expanded space,

To every soul and sect shall be —
That sacred privilege of our race —
The worship of the Deity.

Let foes to freedom dread the name;

But should they touch the sacred tree,
Twice fifty thousands swords would flame
For Jefferson and liberty.

From Georgia to Lake Champlain,

From seas to Mississippi’s shore,
Ye sons of freedom loud proclaim —
“The reign of terror is no more.”

These gifts, great Liberty, are thine,
Then thousand more we owe to thee,
Immortal may their mem’ries shine,
Who fought and died for Liberty.

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Thomas Collins
Thomas Collins
Saturday, September 19, AD 2015 7:31am

Reign of Terror? Referring no doubt to all the Jeffersonians herded into concentration camps, one wonders how he ever got elected.

I’d love to hear Adams’s campaign song for the same year, I think a major plank of his campaign was that no woman’s would be safe with TJ in office.

Tom D
Tom D
Monday, September 21, AD 2015 10:43am

Obviously the ‘reign of terror’ refers to the Alien and Sedition Acts.

Jay Anderson
Tuesday, September 22, AD 2015 9:38am

Jefferson would know a thing or two about “reigns of terror”, since he supported the actual one in France.

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