Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Literary Manuscripts
  3. Manuscript Catalogs
  4. med.ead01_med.00783

[Let others say what they]

  • Whitman Archive Title: [Let others say what they]
  • Whitman Archive ID: med.00783
  • Repository: Catalog of Unlocated Walt Whitman Manuscripts
  • Date: about 1855
  • Genre: prose
  • Physical Description: number of leaves unknown, handwritten
  • View Images: currently unavailable
  • Content: This one-sentence manuscript, expressing the opinion that "all the military and naval personnel of the States must conform to the sternest principles of Dem[ocracy]," is known only from a transcription published by Richard Maurice Bucke in Notes and Fragments (London, Ontario: A. Talbot & Co., printers, 1899), 55. The sentiment and phrasing of the manuscript are similar to statements Whitman made in "Democracy," an essay first published in the December 1867 issue of The Galaxy. When in 1871, Whitman combined this and two other essays to form the pamphlet-length essay Democratic Vistas, he elaborated the point with a note declaring "the whole present system of officering [. . .] a monstrous exotic." It is also possible that the present manuscript represents a draft fragment that contributed the "Preface" to the first edition of Leaves of Grass (1855), which contains a passing reference to the belief that no "detail of the army or navy [. . .] can long elude the [. . .] instinct of American standards."
View All Works
Back to top