"The Star-Spangled Banner": A Racist Song?

These days, with all the political correctness and hatred of all things even remotely considered Confederate, the National Anthem has been coming into increasing fire because it was written by Francis Scott Key, who owned slaves and whose family generally supported the Confederacy during the war.

That alone would cause these Confederate-haters to hate the song.

But then, there is the part in the seldom-sung fourth stanza which goes:  "No refuge could save the hireling and slave from the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave."  They take this as anti-slave and racist.

The fact is.that hirelings referred to escaped slaves who had joined British forces with the promise of freedom and land as members of the Colonial Marines.  And, the British consistently tried to get slaves to runaway from their masters as a way of hurting the American war effort.

Not a Racist Song.  --Old Secesh