Al Smitley's Videos (Minstrel Banjo) - Minstrel Banjo

Buck's Private Confession Publicly Revealed

2025-06-13T18:09:49.381Z

This musical skit portrays the first two lines of each verse as if in the voice of soon-to-be (1857-1861) President Buchanan with the last two lines in the r...

Toledo War Song

2025-06-05T19:06:47.201Z

Initially generated by an early cartographic error, by the mid-1830s a dispute between the State of Ohio and Michigan Territory unfolded over the possession ...

Michigan Emigrants Song

2025-06-01T08:59:43.963Z

Lewis Cass, Michigan' Territorial Governor, viewed the initial construction of the Erie Canal as an eventual path toward statehood. The opening of the canal...

Slavery Is A Hard Foe To Battle

2025-05-04T01:59:35.022Z

New Hampshire’s Hutchinson Family Singers debuted in the late 1830s singing sentimental and patriotic songs celebrating the virtues of rural life.In 1842, ho...

Treacherous Hearted President

2025-04-21T01:30:12.124Z

The Whig Party organized in opposition to Jacksonian policies and defeated Jackson’s heir-apparent, Martin Van Buren, in his bid for a second term in the 1840 election. Whig champion, William Henry Harrison, however, died only a month after his inaugural and Vice President, John Tyler failed to embrace Whig policies of federally financing internal improvements and a new Bank of the United States. The first President to reach office as a result of a predecessor’s death, there was considerable question as to Tyler’s legitimacy in assuming the position. Though a slaveholder, fellow Whig, John Botts, opposed the extension of slavery into the territories and favored a National Bank which was vetoed and thus he quickly opposed President Tyler. Botts called for a nine-member committee to investigate Tyler’s behavior with the expectation of a formal impeachment. Botts failed in his re-election bid and his bill was then tabled and eventually rejected. The verses were printed in “The Clay Club Coon Songster” (1844) to be sung to the tune of “Fine Old English Gentleman”.