As God is my witness, today was the first that I had heard of this issue involving “Maryland My Maryland,” which is Maryland’s official song.

Former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley, who has sought to draw attention to his presidential bid by urging South Carolina to retire the Confederate battle flag, presided over a state for eight years whose official song expresses Confederate sympathies.

[snip]

The song, with lyrics dating to the beginning of the Civil War, contains a plea for Maryland, a border state, to secede from the Union and join the Confederacy. In some verses rarely performed these days, President Abraham Lincoln is referred to as “the despot” and “the tyrant,” while the Union is called “Northern scum.”

Speaking as ‘Northern scum’ (born in New York, raised in New Jersey, family from Massachusetts) who is now living more or less proudly in the Old Line State, I’m a little surprised that I somehow missed this particular Maryland issue in 2009.  Then again, in 2009 it was a Democratic governor and a Democratic legislature in a Democratic-controlled state, so I suppose the media thought that there was no pressing need to make a federal case out of it.  Certainly Martin O’Malley seemed happy enough to just sort of… back away slowly, and not bring up the subject again.  Because that’s what a leader does.  Hide.

The Washington Post notes, by the way: “A portion of the song — without the more controversial lyrics — is sung each year in Baltimore at the Preakness Stakes, the second leg of horse racing’s Triple Crown.”  Given that the first line is apparently a nasty reference to Abraham Lincoln, one wonders what counts as ‘more controversial’ in this context. ‘Anything that might have stopped Martin O’Malley from gettting reelected Governor in 2010,’ I suppose.

Via James Taranto. Image derived using Shutterstock.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: Seriously, Martin O’Malley has no justification whatsoever lecturing South Carolina – or any other state – on either propriety or delay.

PPS: I know that Governor Larry Hogan is ill (I pray for his recovery regularly), but could he possibly… do something about this song problem?