Complete Prose Works: Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My FancyWhitman, Walt
History
Complete Prose Works: Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy
Whitman, Walt
American literature
Sad, serious, deep truths. Yet are there other, still deeper, amply
confronting, dominating truths. Over those politicians and great and
little rings, and over all their insolence and wiles, and over the
powerfulest parties, looms a power, too sluggish maybe, but ever holding
decisions and decrees in hand, ready, with stern process, to execute
them as soon as plainly needed--and at times, indeed, summarily crushing
to atoms the mightiest parties, even in the hour of their pride.
In saner hours far different are the amounts of these things from what,
at first sight, they appear. Though it is no doubt important who
is elected governor, mayor, or legislator, (and full of dismay when
incompetent or vile ones get elected, as they sometimes do,) there are
other, quieter contingencies, infinitely more important. Shams, &c.,
will always be the show, like ocean's scum; enough, if waters deep and
clear make up the rest. Enough, that while the piled embroider'd shoddy
gaud and fraud spreads to the superficial eye, the hidden warp and weft
are genuine, and will wear forever. Enough, in short, that the race,
the land which could raise such as the late rebellion, could also put it
down. The average man of a land at last only is important. He, in these
States, remains immortal owner and boss, deriving good uses, somehow,
out of any sort of servant in office, even the basest; (certain
universal requisites, and their settled regularity and protection, being
first secured,) a nation like ours, in a sort of geological formation
state, trying continually new experiments, choosing new delegations,
is not served by the best men only, but sometimes more by those that
provoke it--by the combats they arouse. Thus national rage, fury,
discussions, &c., better than content. Thus, also, the warning signals,
invaluable for after times.
What is more dramatic than the spectacle we have seen repeated, and
doubtless long shall see--the popular judgment taking the successful
candidates on trial in the offices--standing off, as it were, and
observing them and their doings for a while, and always giving, finally,
the fit, exactly due reward? I think, after all, the sublimest part of
political history, and its culmination, is currently issuing from
the American people. I know nothing grander, better exercise, better
digestion, more positive proof of the past, the triumphant result of
faith in human-kind, than a well-contested American national election.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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