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At the 1860 Republican convention in Chicago, Abraham Lincoln won his party's nomination for president of the United States. In 19 th century America, hardly a presidential candidate won an election without having his name linked to liberty in a song. Jesse Hutchinson, Jr., of New Hampshire's famous Hutchinson Family Singers, wrote the lyrics to Lincoln and Liberty and set them to the tune of Rosin the Bow , an Irish melody that is one of the most parodied in folk music. The Hutchinson Family Singers traveled the country singing anti-slavery and pro-Union songs, frequently at Lincoln's campaign appearances, and later, in the White House.

Lincoln and Liberty became Lincoln's official campaign song in 1860 and was published in the book The Hutchinson's Republican Songster , which was used at rallies everywhere. On November, 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected the sixteenth president of the United States. He bid farewell to friends and supporters in Springfield on February 11, 1861 and boarded a train bound for Washington. By the time he took office on March 4, 1861, his publicly stated belief that slavery was "a moral, a social, and a political wrong" prompted the lower South to secede from the Union and form the Confederate States of America in an effort to protect their "peculiar institution." When Confederate forces attacked a United States military installation at Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina on April 12, 1861, the Civil War had begun.

lyrics

Hurrah for the choice of the nation
Our chieftain so brave and so true
We'll go for the great reformation
For Lincoln and liberty, too

We'll go for the son of Kentucky
The hero of Hoosierdom through
The pride of the Suckers, so lucky
For Lincoln and liberty, too

They'll find what by felling and mauling
Our rail-maker statesman can do
For the people are everywhere calling
For Lincoln and liberty, too

Then up with the banner so glorious
The star-spangled red, white and blue
We'll fight 'til our banner's victorious
For Lincoln and liberty, too

Our David's good sling is unerring
The Slavocrat's giant he slew
Then shout for the freedom preferring
For Lincoln and liberty, too

We'll go for the son of Kentucky
The hero of Hoosierdom through
The pride of the Suckers, so lucky
For Lincoln and liberty, too

credits

from Ballad of America Volume 3: Songs in the Life of Abraham Lincoln, released February 12, 2009

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Matthew Sabatella and the Rambling String Band Florida

With vocals, guitar, banjo, fiddle, mandolin, and bass fiddle, Matthew Sabatella and the Rambling String Band bring to life music that is woven into the fabric of the United States: traditional folk songs, fiddle tunes, old-time country, bluegrass, Appalachian music, ragtime, blues, spirituals, railroad and cowboy songs, work songs, sea shanties, reels, breakdowns, ballads, and more. ... more

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