CHAPTER 6 | SONGS OF SOCIAL REFORM AND WAR 153
song in support of the radical abolitionist Liberty Party, whose candidate
James Birney would win less than 3 percent of the popular vote in the 1844
presidential election. A long w ith multiple references to “liberty,” evoking the
party as well as the concept, Jesse Hutchinson Jr.’s lyrics warn that “Rail Roads
to Ema ncipation / Ca n not rest on Clay foundation,” a swipe at Whig candidate
Henry Clay, whose soft position on slavery alienated many abolitionist vot-
ers. The sheet music cover illustration shows a train whose engine, labeled
liber ator (a reference to William Lloyd Garrison’s abolitionist newspaper of
the same name), pulls a car labeled liberty votes and ballot boxes, while
in the distance a smaller train, its engine labeled clay, heads into a ditch. On
top of that, Clay’s Whig party had already produced its own campaign song
that year, titled “Get Out of the Way!” and also sung to the tune of “Old Dan
Tu c ke r.”K The Hutchinsons’
emancipation song “Get
Off the Track!,” sung to
the tune of the minstrel hit
“Old Dan Tucker,” made an
especially strong impression
at abolitionist meetings and
rallies in the North.172028_06_132-161_r3_ko.indd 153 23/01/13 8:19 PM