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Behold the day of promise comes, full of inspiration: The blessed day by prophets sung for the healing of the nation. Old midnight errors flee away, they soon will all be gone, While heavenly angels seem to say the good time's coming on.
The captive now begins to rise and burst his chains asunder, While politicians stand aghast in anxious fear and wonder. No longer shall the bondman sigh beneath the galling fetters; He sees the dawn of freedom nigh and reads the golden letters.
Sweet dawn of peace, that day will prove, to all the sons of labor; For everyone will have enough and gladly lend his neighbor. Already in the golden east the glorious light is dawning, And watchmen from the mountaintops can see the blessed morning.
Whence come the wars and fightings dire among the various nations, But the warring elements in ourselves: false habits and relations. Reforms must all begin at home, reformers can't deny it, And men must cease from gnawing bones and take to a simple diet.
Still higher up the morning beams are spreading in their beauty, While men, of every grade, begin to see more clear their duty. They've suffered long in ignorance - the night was thick and hazy; But now the cause is understood that made the world so crazy.
Oh, then will come the glorious day and may it last forever, When all the nations of the earth in peace shall dwell together; For right is right, since God is God, and right the day must win: To doubt would be disloyalty, to falter would be sin.
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Hutchinson Family. "Right Over Wrong: Coming Right Along: Song and Chorus." Music: Hutchinson Family [actually, Judson J. Hutchinson]. Lyrics: Jesse [Hutchinson, Jr.]. First line: "Behold the day of promise comes, full of inspiration The blessed day by prophets sung, for the healing of the nation." First line of chorus: "The good time, the good time, the good time's coming on." New York: Horace Waters. 1855.
- Another version of the chorus features the words, "Coming right along."
- It was simply not the way of Jesse Hutchinson, Jr., to write a set of topical verses, polish them up, and be done with them. He couldn't seem to leave some of his lyrics alone. "The Old Granite State" is the best-known example. Others include "Eight Dollars a Day," "Uncle Sam's Farm," and evidently "The Good Old Days of Yore." "Right Over Wrong" was introduced to the public during an early 1851 concert tour through the Northeast. Not much later, Jesse formed a trio with Judson and John and toured through the Midwest. Before that trip ended, Jesse was replaced by Asa; and Jesse went home to be with his ailing wife and daughter. After their death, the business partnership between Jesse, on the one hand, and John and Asa, on the other, was ended under hazy circumstances; and Jesse traveled to the California mining country, where he spent the peak year of California Gold Rush. It appears that, while he was away, he came to some understanding with his brothers. Sadly, he died before he made his way back home. So, Jesse wasn't around enough to work his special magic on "Right Over Wrong;" and it is, in that sense, unfinished. That, of course, didn't keep his brothers from performing the song. John Hutchinson was still singing "Right Over Wrong" at meetings and including it in his concert programs in the early years of the twentieth century. The version of the lyrics that appears on this page is the best one in my view.
- By 1849, Judson J. Hutchinson had become strangely shy about publishing his songs and about taking credit for those compositions that were published. It wasn't until late in life that he returned to his normal old self in these respects. So while this melody is nominally attributed to the Hutchinson Family, as a whole, Ludlow Patton credited the music to Judson. Ludlow's word is good enough for me. "Right Over Wrong" is Judson's last known great collaboration with Brother Jesse.
![[earliest Hutchinson Family publicity likeness]](http://www.oocities.org/unclesamsfarm/quartet342.jpg)
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