The Marsh Family recorded this wonderful song, but when I first listened to it, I had to look up "Satsuma."
I had no idea what to what these singers referred. Now I do.
The Satsuma Rebellion, was a revolt of disaffected samurai against the new imperial government of Japan, nine years into the Meiji era. Its name comes from the Satsuma Domain, which had been influential in the Restoration and became home to unemployed samurai after military reforms rendered their status obsolete. The rebellion lasted from 29 January until 24 September of 1877, when it was decisively crushed, and its leader, Saigō Takamori, was shot and mortally wounded.
Saigō's rebellion was the last and most serious of a series of armed uprisings against the new government of the Empire of Japan, the predecessor state to modern Japan.
In other words, with a former president trying to regain power and threatening civil war, history may not repeat itself, but perhaps it rhymes, or echoes.
In 2018, journalist Elaine Weiss published The Woman's Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote.
From the introduction to The Woman's Hour:
ON A SATURDAY EVENING in mid-July 1920, three women raced toward Nashville’s Union Station on steam-powered trains. They each traveled alone, carrying a small suitcase, a handbag, a folder stuffed with documents. They were unremarkable in appearance, dressed in demure cotton dresses and summer hats; their fellow passengers could hardly imagine the dramatic purpose they shared: they had all been summoned to command forces [not all on the same side] in what would prove to be one of the pivotal political battles in American history.
This is the story of that battle, the furious campaign to secure the final state needed to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, giving women the most fundamental right of democracy—the vote. [...]
They converged on Nashville for the explosive climax of American women’s seven-decade struggle for equal citizenship, and there was much at stake: thirty-six state approvals were required for ratification, and thirty-five were in hand. If the Tennessee legislature ratified the Nineteenth Amendment, woman suffrage would become the law of the land and twenty-seven million women would be able to vote, just in time for the fall presidential elections; if the legislature rejected it, the amendment might never be enacted. It all came down to Tennessee.
There were powerful forces opposing federal woman suffrage as it approached the legal finish line: political, corporate, and ideological adversaries intent upon stopping the Nineteenth Amendment. Some of the most vociferous foes of enfranchisement were the women “Antis” such as Josephine Pearson, who feared that women’s entrance into the polling booth would hasten the nation’s moral collapse. The “Suffs” had reason to worry, as the amendment had already been rejected by nearly all the southern states, for the same blatantly racist reasons as put forth by Tennessee: if women got the vote, black women would also be entitled to the ballot. The presidential candidates were playing their own games, using woman suffrage as a pawn. This was the moment of reckoning, and both sides were willing to use every possible weapon to prevail.
I wasn't there. But I'm thankful Elaine Weiss diligently researched this incredibly important time in America.
I've read some American history. I follow current events in the news today. From my perspective, I have been confident WE the PEOPLE will again do the right thing and declare Donald Trump GUILTY, as opposed to allowing him to regain the power of the Oval Office.
However, national journalists and pundits aren't as confident as I am. That is probably a good thing.
The fight for women's suffrage may have been seven-decades long (I suppose counting from the mid-19th Century until the 19th Amendment was enacted). But America and the World have suffered a long century since that culminated with democracy coming under severe risk.
For those wanting to grasp the gravity of the fight for women's suffrage, I emphatically encourage you to obtain a copy of The Woman's Hour.
In 2015-16, the fight against Fascism was intense. Hillary Rodham Clinton fought valiantly but came up short. Significant lessons for the American Electorate ensued. President Biden's administration has been both revolutionary and a healing balm for so many of us.
Over the last month, a magnificently serendipitous event occurred when Biden, who could have won a second term anyway, stepped aside. Vice President Kamala Harris seamlessly stepped into the breach and delivered a huge gut punch to the criminal seeking to regain power. Simultaneously, Harris delivered hope millions of Americans now bask in. Hope that Trump took away from the millions who died in the Covid-19 pandemic.
I'm thankful for YOU. And for hopefully in two months President-elect Kamala Harris.
Fight for what you LOVE. If you're like me, you LOVE American freedom. Let's work vigorously together to ensure our democratic republic lives on into and beyond 2025.
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