“That herb well deserves cultivation,
Oh scatter its seed all around,—
Let it flourish in every plantation,
While Rebels and Traitors abound.
Down, down with the tyrant “King Cotton,”
King Hemp holds the rascal in check.
If you cant cure the heart that’s all rotten,
Try a bandage of Hemp on the neck.”
-Physic for Traitors!
‘The Great Union War Song’ Physic for Traitors!, is an early American Civil War song written in the early 1860’s. Another piece of American history again literally intertwined with Hemp.
Physic for Traitors!
What means all this frightful commotion?
What has happen’d to make such a din?
Like a storm on the turbulent ocean,
We hear the loud hub-bub begin.
Say, who are the bold agitators
That dare to get up such a row?
Let us hunt up the rascally Traitors
And thoroughly physic them now.
And thoroughly physic them now.
Let us hunt up the rascally Traitors,
And thoroughly physic them now.
We’ll doctor them all in short metre,
And give the dogs physic enough;
Charcoal, brimstone, well mix’d with salt petre,
And lead pills are the right sort of stuff.
But take notice, ye Union haters,
It’s a fact, by the Doctors confess’d,
That of all kinds of Physic for Traitors,
Pure Hemp is the finest and best.
Pure Hemp is the finest and best.
That herb well deserves cultivation,
Oh scatter its seed all around,—
Let it flourish in every plantation,
While Rebels and Traitors abound.
Down, down with the tyrant “King Cotton,”
King Hemp holds the rascal in check.
If you cant cure the heart that’s all rotten,
Try a bandage of Hemp on the neck.
Try a bandage of Hemp on the neck.
The Goddess of Freedom is quaking,
The rebels have frighten’d her so,
Her belt is quite loose with hard shaking
And her garments have fallen below.
Half-stripp’d, while the fierce winds assail her,
Her eyes she scarce ventures to lift;
Still colder she grows and still paler,
Having come to her very last shift.
Having come to her very last shift.
Has Freedom no friends to protect her?
Will you see her stripp’d naked and bare
By Jeff Davis, the white-liver’d Hector,
Who would soon leave her ‘nothing to wear’.
Jeff Davis, you poison old adder,
The length of your chain you have run;
You are puff’d up with wind like a bladder,
And we’ll bust you as sure as a gun.
And we’ll bust you as sure as a gun.
Come, volunteers, be ye not laggards,
Seize your weapons without more delay,
Make a dash at the base Southern blackguards
And sweep the vile nuisance away.
Down, down with the rogues misbegotten,
The bastards of niggers they be;
Down, down with the slaves of King Cotton
Who shoot at the Flag of the Free.
Who shoot at the Flag of the Free.
Come, spin a strong rope for Jeff Davis,
And a couple for Yancey and Rhett,
(For each a detestable knave is.)
Nor Pickens nor Stephens forget.
Have a cord for old false-hearted Pillow,
Have another for Letcher supplied,
Hand old Toombs, (gloomy rogue!) on a willow
And let Twiggs to an oak twig be tied.
And let Twiggs to an oak twig be tied.
Let Chestnut be quickly suspended
From a branch of his own name-sake tree;
Thus let every scoundrel be ended
Who shoots at the Flag of the Free.
Thus deal with the foul instigators,
Of treason and treachery base,
For Hemp is the Physic for Traitors
And the Gallows is their proper place.
And the Gallows is their proper place.