{
 "id": "frances-ellen-watkins-harper/an-appeal-to-the-american-people",
 "title": "An Appeal to the American People",
 "poet": "Frances Ellen Watkins Harper",
 "poet_slug": "frances-ellen-watkins-harper",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poems",
 "book_slug": "poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1871,
  "venue": "Poems (1871)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/poems01harp"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/frances-ellen-watkins-harper_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
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   "https://archive.org/details/poemsonmiscellan00harp",
   "https://scalar.lehigh.edu/african-american-poetry-a-digital-anthology/frances-ew-harper-poems-1871",
   "https://archive.org/details/poems01harp",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69249",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/007491600",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69248",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100774124",
   "https://scalar.lehigh.edu/african-american-poetry-a-digital-anthology/frances-ew-harper-poems-full-text-1895",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100488369",
   "https://scalar.lehigh.edu/african-american-poetry-a-digital-anthology/frances-ew-harper-idylls-of-the-bible-1901",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100319488",
   "https://archive.org/details/historyofafrican00payn",
   "https://archive.org/details/WeeklyAngloAfricanI",
   "https://archive.org/details/sim_liberator_1858-05-14_28_20",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000500702",
   "https://archive.org/details/undergroundrailr00stil",
   "https://archive.org/details/frances-ellen-watkins-harper_sketches-of-southern-life-1872",
   "https://archive.org/details/25th-annual-report-of-the-board-of-managers-of-the-home-etc",
   "https://archive.org/details/frances-ellen-watkins-harper_light-beyond-the-darkness",
   "https://archive.org/details/ame-church-review-1900-04"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-12"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 42,
  "n_stanzas": 7,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 39,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "When a dark and fearful strife",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Raged around the nation’s life,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the traitor plunged his steel",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where your quivering hearts could feel,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When your cause did need a friend,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We were faithful to the end.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "When we stood with bated breath,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Facing fiery storms of death,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the war-cloud, red with wrath,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fiercely swept around our path,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Did our hearts with terror quail?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or our courage ever fail?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "When the captive, wanting bread,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sought our poor and lowly shed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the bloodhounds missed his way,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Did we e’er his path betray?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Filled we not his heart with trust",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As we shared with him our crust?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "With your soldiers, side by side,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Helped we turn the battle’s tide,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till o’er ocean, stream and shore,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Waved the rebel flag no more,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And above the rescued sod",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Praises rose to freedom’s God.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But to-day the traitor stands",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With the crimson on his hands,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Scowling ’neath his brow of hate,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On our weak and desolate,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With the blood-rust on the knife",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Aimèd at the nation’s life.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Asking you to weakly yield",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All we won upon the field,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To ignore, on land and flood,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All the offerings of our blood,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And to write above our slain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“They have fought and died in vain.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "To your manhood we appeal,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lest the traitor’s iron heel",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Grind and trample in the dust",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All our new-born hope and trust,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the name of freedom be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Linked with bitter mockery.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}