Poetry · Chapter
Then and Now explained
This chapter contrasts the nation's founding ideals with its history of slavery and oppression, culminating in divine judgment and emancipation.
What happens
This chapter contrasts the nation's founding ideals with its history of slavery and oppression, culminating in divine judgment and emancipation. It celebrates the progress made since slavery, honoring abolitionist heroes and calling for continued moral and spiritual advancement.
Themes in this chapter
Freedom and Liberation
The chapter celebrates the transition from chattel slavery to freedom, emphasizing divine intervention and human struggle.
Social Injustice and Class
Highlights the historical oppression of Native Americans and African Americans, and the systemic wrongs of slavery.
Faith and Divine Justice
God's wrath and judgment are portrayed as the force that breaks the chains of slavery and brings about liberation.
Hope and Redemption
The chapter ends with a call to build a nobler future, grounded in love, peace, and righteousness.
Characters to notice
- The People
The collective nation, built through struggle and oppression, now experiencing freedom.
- Mister Lincoln
Martyred President who rent the chains of slavery.
- John Brown
Martyred abolitionist who made the gallows an altar.
- Harriet Beecher Stowe
Author whose pen corroded the chains of fettered men.
- Frederick Douglass
Former slave who pleaded the cause with his broken chain.
- William Lloyd Garrison
Valiant and strong abolitionist whose face was as flint against wrong.
- Lucretia Mott
Woman who stood for freedom and equality.
- Lucy Stone
Simple name known to the world for her advocacy.
Key passages
“Build me a nation true and strong, Bar out the old world’s hate and wrong”
God commands the creation of a nation that rejects the hatred and injustice of the Old World.
The founding vision of America as a place of refuge and righteousness.
“The Indian stood despoiled of lands, The Negro bound with servile bands”
Native Americans were dispossessed and African Americans were enslaved.
Acknowledges the dual oppression that marred the nation's history.
“Then God arose in dreadful wrath, And judgment streamed around his path; His hand the captive’s fetters broke, His lightnings shattered every yoke.”
God's divine judgment and power shattered the chains of slavery.
Divine intervention is credited with emancipation.
“Beings once chattles now are men”
Those who were once property are now recognized as human beings.
The fundamental change in legal and social status after emancipation.
“To-day no mother with anguish wild Kneels and implores that her darling child Shall not be torn from her bleeding heart”
Mothers no longer have to beg for their children not to be sold away.
The end of the slave trade's destruction of families.
