Christmas Carols and Abolitionism

The histories of O Holy Night and I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day

Christmas is without a doubt my favorite time of the year. As the Christmas season comes to a close, all of us at Democracy’s Sisyphus wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and share the history behind some popular Christmas Carols. Specifically, I wanted to look at the relationship between Christmas and abolitionism.

Utah Capitol Christmas Tree (Source: Utah Capitol)

Since the Roman Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in 321 AD, Christian institutions and thought have shaped Western Civilization. Christianity and supposedly Christian motives were frequently used by Europeans and their descendants to justify the enslaving of both Africans and Indigenous Americans. However, Christianity was also often the fuel of abolition movements which found inspiration in Jesus’ message of brotherly love and equality before God. The story of William Wilberforce, John Newton, and the hymn Amazing Grace is probably the most famous example of this phenomenon.

Nevertheless, Christmas has its own intertwined history with abolitionism.

O Holy Night

O Holy Night is a French Christmas Carol originally written as a poem in 1847. The poet Placide Cappeau de Roquemaure produced a text meant to capture what it would have been like to personally witness Christ's birth. It is not clear if Placide Cappeau intended his poem, originally known as Cantique de Noël or Minuit Chrétien (Christmas Carol or Midnight Christians), to have an abolitionist undertone. He was a man of more political than religious convictions who eventually developed strong socialist leanings (a fact that later led to his Christmas hymn being banned by the French Catholic Church). His worldview almost certainly influenced the emphasis on equality in the song, and abolition and racial equality were popular causes with European socialists and leftists of the mid-nineteenth century.

In the United States, the French hymn was discovered by a staunch abolitionist and Unitarian minister, John Sullivan Dwight. Intentional or not, Dwight saw a clear abolitionist message in the song’s French lyrics that translated read as follows:

The Redeemer has overcome every obstacle

The Earth is free, and Heaven is open.

He sees a brother where there was only a slave

Love unites those that iron had chained.

Who will tell Him of our gratitude,

It's for all of us that He is born,

That He suffers and dies.

Dwight then penned an English translation that we know as O Holy Night. His song became extremely popular with abolitionist and Northern audiences, especially after the beginning of the American Civil War. The English language version of the song does not attempt to disguise its abolitionist message:

Truly He taught us to love one another;

His law is love and His gospel is peace.

Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother;

And in His name all oppression shall cease.

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day

The American Civil War would prove the impetus for our second Christmas Carol. I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day also began as a poem (originally just Christmas Bells) in 1863 from the famed American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Longfellow’s support for abolitionism dates back to 1842 when he published his Poems on Slavery. One of these poems, The Slave Singing at Midnight, clearly reflects Longfellow’s perception of the link between Christianity and abolitionism:

Loud he sang the psalm of David!

He, a Negro and enslaved,

Sang of Israel's victory,

Sang of Zion, bright and free.

And the voice of his devotion

Filled my soul with strange emotion;

For its tones by turns were glad,

Sweetly solemn, wildly sad.

Paul and Silas, in their prison,

Sang of Christ, the Lord arisen,

And an earthquake's arm of might

Broke their dungeon-gates at night.

Like many other Americans living at the time of the Civil War, Longfellow was devastated to see the country torn apart by the sin of slavery. His son, serving in the Union Army, was wounded in the fall of 1863 and the news of his injury further overwhelmed his father. On Christmas day of that year, Longfellow wrote his Christmas carol. Not unlike today, Longfellow found himself in a country completely divided on how to interpret its fundamental values. This division had driven the country to destroy itself in a conflict of unprecedented violence that seemed to Longfellow clearly contrary to the spirit of Christmas:

Then from each black, accursed mouth

The cannon thundered in the South,

And with the sound

The carols drowned

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;

"There is no peace on earth," I said;

"For hate is strong,

And mocks the song

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Nevertheless, in his despair, Longfellow found his faith restored. He felt assured that God would oversee the eventual victory of righteousness:

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;

The Wrong shall fail,

The Right prevail,

With peace on earth, good-will to men."

To all DS readers, I hope you have enjoyed this foray into the history of Christmas, more importantly, for those of you that celebrate, I hope you have enjoyed your Christmas season.

Merry Christmas!

For more Christmas history, check out our history of eggnog!