by Walt Whitman
The glory of the republic of the United States, in my opinion, is to be that, emerging in the light of the modern and the splendor of science, and solidly based on the past, it is to cheerfully range itself, and its politics are henceforth to come, under those universal laws, and embody them, and carry them out, to serve them. And as only that individual becomes truly great who understands well that, while complete in himself in a certain sense, he is but a part of the divine, eternal scheme, and whose special life and laws are adjusted to move in harmonious relations with the general laws of Nature, and especially with the moral law, the deepest and highest of all, and the last vitality of man or state—so the United States may only become the greatest and the most continuous, by understanding well their harmonious relations with entire humanity and history, and all their laws and progress, sublimed with the creative thought of Deity, through all time, past, present, and future. Thus will they expand to the amplitude of their destiny, and become illustrations and culminating parts of the cosmos, and of civilization.
No more considering the States as an incident, or series of incidents, however vast, coming accidentally along the path of time, and shaped by casual emergencies as they happen to arise, and the mere result of modern improvements, vulgar and lucky, ahead of other nations and times, I would finally plant, as seeds, these thoughts or speculations in the growth of our republic—that it is the deliberate culmination and result of all the past—that here, too, as in all departments of the universe, regular laws (slow and sure in planting, slow and sure in ripening) have controll’d and govern’d, and will yet control and govern; and that those laws can no more be baffled or steer’d clear of, or vitiated, by chance, or any fortune or opposition, than the laws of winter and summer, or darkness and light.
The summing up of the tremendous moral and military perturbations of 1861-5, and their results—and indeed of the entire hundred years of the past of our national experiment, from its inchoate movement down to the present day (1780–1881)—is, that they all now launch the United States fairly forth, consistently with the entirety of civilization and humanity, and in main sort the representative of them, leading the van, leading the fleet of the modern and democratic, on the seas and voyages of the future.
And the real history of the United States—starting from that great convulsive struggle for unity, the secession war, triumphantly concluded, and the South victorious after all—is only to be written at the remove of hundreds, perhaps a thousand, years hence.
THE NEVERSINK LIBRARY
AFTER MIDNIGHT
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THE ETERNAL PHILISTINE
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THE LATE LORD BYRON
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THE TRAIN
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THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY
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FAITHFUL RUSLAN
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THE PRESIDENT
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AMBIGUOUS ADVENTURE
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THE DEVIL IN THE FLESH
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THE MADONNA OF THE
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THE BOOK OF KHALID
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YOUTH WITHOUT GOD
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SNOWBALL’S CHANCE
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FUTILITY
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THE RIGHT WAY TO DO WRONG
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I AWAIT THE DEVIL’S COMING
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MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY
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THE DIFFICULTY OF BEING
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GILGI
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INSEL
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LETTERS OF JAMES AGEE
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SPECIMEN DAYS AND COLLECT
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TIRRA LIRRA BY THE RIVER
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