A painting depicts Francis Scott Key aboard the British ship in Baltimore during the Battle of Baltimore in 1814. Ed Vebell is the photographer of the images.
A painting depicts Francis Scott Key aboard the British ship in Baltimore during the Battle of Baltimore in 1814. Ed Vebell is a photographer.
The battle over how we teach our country's past is raging.
The legacies of slavery are being confronted by the United States. The New York Times' "1619 Project" reexamines the history of slavery in the U.S. and the killings of black men by police have prompted a national rethinking.
The debate over critical race theory, which states that racism is systemic in U.S institutions, has added fuel to the national debate.
Some of the deepest contradictions in our history have been revealed.
Francis Scott Key, the author of the country's national anthem, is a rare example of a U.S. historian who embodies those contradictions.
Key has a complicated legacy.
Key was a slaveholder who opposed slavery in principle, like his hero Thomas Jefferson. He thought he was an anti-slavery reformer.
He couldn't comprehend the idea of abolition. His career as an attorney shows how ingrained slavery was in early American life.
Key was too young to remember the American Revolution. He came of age in the aftermath of the event, a time when most Americans were not very fond of liberty and equality. He came of age at a time when many Northern states abolished slavery.
Key was never completely comfortable with slavery.
He argued against the international slave trade as a young D.C.-based lawyer, and defended enslaved people in court.
Key was not an abolitionist.
He used the American Colonization Society to express his anti-slavery views. The group was founded in 1816 and supported the migration of freed people to Africa. Key was one of the organization's most steadfast defenders.
The anti-slavery movement has an enemy.
The American Colonization Society fell under attack as Key became a strong supporter of colonization. The organization was denounced by free people of color. The idea of leaving the U.S. was dismissed by most Black leaders.
The American Colonization Society opposition gave rise to a radical form of abolitionism. This was the abolitionism of activists like William Lloyd Garrison, publisher of the leading anti-slavery newspaper, and Fredrick Douglass, the escaped slave and renowned activist who would become the most famous abolitionist in the country. They wanted abolition to happen quickly.
The abolitionism of the American Antislavery Society was formed in the 19th century. The American Colonization Society's gradualism was not their goal.
Key didn't find a home in this movement. The American Colonization Society is where he stayed.
He moved in the opposite direction when the winds changed. He became more conservative as he began attacking the abolitionists.
Key became an enemy of the anti-slavery movement and of anti-slavery publishers. Abolitionists made him a villain by adding the words "in the home of the free and the land of the oppressor" to the "Star-Spangled Banner".
A final gesture.
Key's last public performance was the trial of Crandall.
Key, then district attorney for Washington, charged a local botanist with trying to foment rebellion among area slaves in a case that made national headlines. The police found a lot of anti-slavery pamphlets in the office.
Key was able to make an example of abolitionism once and for all.
Key built his case around the idea that anti-slavery activism fomented rebellion among enslaved people and was thus a matter of public safety.
He let his true colors show. He said that he had called slavery a "great moral and political evil" while trying to fend off allegations from the defense.
The moral and political evil that I speak of is supposed to be slavery, but is it not the whole colored race? If I said this of slavery, as I am willing to say it, here and on all fit occasions, do I not also say that it is a far greater evil?
Key argued that if the country were not to prosecute the anti-slavery movement, it would be handed over to those who wanted to amalgamate the races and offer equal citizenship to people of color.
It was an appeal to white supremacy that masked the fact that Key didn't have a case. He couldn't prove that Crandall intended to cause a rebellion.
The jury seemed to think that Key was out to settle scores rather than seek justice because of the pamphlets that attacked the American Colonization Society.
It wouldn't do him much good that he was found not guilty. He died after being released from jail.
Over 100,000 readers rely on The Conversation to understand the world. Sign up today.
Key was one of the great villains of the anti-slavery movement.
He never apologized. He was one of the most notorious anti-abolitionists in American history despite opposing slavery.
The U.S. is trying to tell the history of how the author of the national anthem was able to hold slaves and defend his right to do so.
The Conversation is a news site that shares ideas from academic experts. Bennett Parten was the author.
Read more.
