Ditto Amos.

The song itself says nothing whatsoever about slavery. It is a silly song written for the sake of entertainment, and that's what people of the time understood it to be. Nothing more, nothing less. People in modern times have attributed meanings to it that aren't there. At the time the song was written, there was no war going on, so no one was taking a stand to live and die for slavery. And don't any of you love your part of the country well enough to take a stand for it if you had to? I think that's just a natural human emotion that Emmett was appealing to. He was a commercial songwriter, and he was playing to the market. Dixie wasn't a folk song when it was written. It was the 19th century equivalent to a Top 40 hit.

So, is Sioux City Sue about bondage and domestic abuse? I mean, there's that line in there about roping and tying and branding...