Walt Whitman is in the highest sense a believer in democracy. He
knows that there is but one excuse for government--the preservation of
liberty, to the end that man may be happy. He knows that there is but
one excuse for any institution, secular or religious--the preservation
of liberty; and that there is but one excuse for schools, lor universal
education, for the ascertainment of facts, namely, the preservation of
liberty. He resents the arrogance and cruelty of power. He has sworn
never to be tyrant or slave. He has solemnly declared:
"_I speak the pass-word primeval, I give the sign of democracy, By God!
I will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the
same terms_."
This one declaration covers the entire ground. It is a declaration of
independence, and it is also a declaration of justice, that is to say,
a declaration of the independence of the individual, and a declaration
that all shall be free. The man who has this spirit can truthfully say:
"_I have taken off my hat to nothing known or unknown. I am for those
that have never been master'd._"
There is in Whitman what he calls "The boundless impatience of
restraint," together with that sense of justice which compelled him to
say, "Neither a servant nor a master am I."
He was wise enough to know that giving others the same rights that he
claims for himself could not harm him, and he was great enough to say:
"As if it were not indispensable to my own rights that others possess
the same."
He felt as all should feel, that the liberty of no man is safe unless
the liberty of each is safe.
There is in our country a little of the old servile spirit, a little of
the bowing and cringing to others. Many Americans do not understand that
the officers of the government are simply the servants of the people.
Nothing is so demoralizing as the worship of place. Whitman has reminded
the people of this country that they are supreme, and he has said to
them:
"_The President is there in the White House for you, it is not you who
are here for him, The Secretaries act in their bureaus for you, not you
here for them. Doctrines, politics and civilization exurge from you,
Sculpture and monuments and any thing inscribed anywhere are tallied in
you_."