Get off the Track (1844)

This famous song was written by the Hutchinson Family Singers of New Hampshire, converts to the abolitionist cause who introduced it during the presidential campaign of 1844. Whigs were furious because the song urged voters to reject their candidate Henry Clay, a Kentucky slaveholder (“Railroads to Emancipation / Cannot rest of Clay foundation“). Instead the Hutchinsons urged voters to support a new, small antislavery party, the Liberty Party. Votes for Liberty candidate James Birney may have cost Clay the election. The Hutchinsons wrote many verses and added more during subsequent elections. The last two here, from the 1860 campaign, advocate support for Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln. This performance by the Dutchess Anti-Slavery Singers, under the auspices of the Mid-Hudson Antislavery History Project, took place in March 2013 in the historic sanctuary of First Congregational Church/United Church of Christ, Poughkeepsie, New York. For more information on the Singers and t