Hail, Columbia
American patriotic song
"Hail, Columbia" is an American patriotic song and ceremonial entrance march of the vice president of the United States. It was originally considered to be one of the unofficial national anthems of the United States until 1931, when "The Star-Spangled Banner" was named as the official national anthem. Columbia is the name for the national personification of the United States which originated during the 18th century.
History
The music was composed by Philip Phile in 1790 for the first inauguration of George Washington and titled "The President's March". It became the song "Hail, Columbia" when arranged with lyrics by Joseph Hopkinson in 1798. The song gained popularity during the XYZ Affair and subsequent Quasi-War with France. The song was used in the United States as a de facto national anthem throughout the 19th century. However, the song lost popularity after World War I and was replaced by "The Star-Spangled Banner" in 1931.
It was the personal anthem for the president, until it was replaced by the song "Hail to the Chief", and it is now the official vice president's personal anthem. The song is always preceded by four ruffles and flourishes when introducing the vice president.
“Hail, Columbia” enters the record as american patriotic song. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Hail, Columbia and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Hail, Columbia” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Hail, Columbia and American provides the most credible route into that argument.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1360131. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1931, 1790 and 1798.
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This entry incorporates text from “Hail, Columbia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.