toiling multitudes of the earth are interested in the fate of this great republic of refuge, which receives and protects the oppressed of every race. "My countrymen who work for your living," said John Bright, at Birmingham, in 1863, "remember this, there will be one wild shriek of freedom to startle all mankind if that Republic should be overthrown." But the game was fought out, and both winners and losers are the gainers. The South, while deeming itself to have lost all save honor, will be more prosperous than it ever dreamed of ere a generation of mankind shall have passed away. Let its "bruised arms be hung up for monuments," along with the trophies of the triumphant North; for the valor, the endurance, and self-sacrifice were equal on both sides, and the defeated party was vanquished because neither pride of color nor immortal hate can successfully struggle against the inexorable law of Freedom and Progress.

DEMOCRACY JUSTIFIES ITSELF

WALT WHITMAN

[From Democratic Vistas, published in 1871. All of the Whitman selections reprinted here are by special permission of Mitchell Kennerley, New York, publisher of the authorized editions of Whitman's works. Democracy has been described as an attitude of mind rather than a form of government. Whitman's attitude of mind engages the attention of all thoughtful men.].

THE movements of the late War, and their results, to any sense that studies well and comprehends them, show that popular democracy, whatever its faults and dangers, practically justifies itself beyond the proudest claims and wildest hopes of its enthusiasts. Probably no future age can know, but I well know, how the grist of this fiercest and most resolute of the world's warlike contentions resided exclusively in the unnamed, unknown rank and file; and how the brunt of its labor of death was, to all essential purposes, volunteer’d. . . .

Descending to detail, entering any of the armies, and mixing with the private soldiers, we see and have seen august spectacles. We have seen the alacrity with which the Americanborn populace, the peaceablest and most good-natured race in the world, and the most personally independent and intelligent, and the least fitted to submit to the irksomeness and exasperation of regimental discipline, sprang at the first tap of the drum, to arms - not for gain, nor even glory, nor to repel invasion — but for an emblem, a mere abstraction — for the life, for the safety of the flag. We have seen the unequal'd docility and obedience of these soldiers. . . . We have seen them in trench, or crouching behind breastwork, or tramping in deep mud, or amid pouring rain or thick-falling snow, or under forced marches in hottest summer (as on the road to get to Gettysburg) vast suffocating swarms, divisions, corps, with every single man so grimed and black with sweat and dust, his own mother would not have known him — his clothes all dirty, stained and torn. Many a comrade, perhaps a brother, sunstruck, staggering out, dying by the roadside, of exhaustion yet the great bulk bearing steadily on, cheery enough, hollow-bellied from hunger, but sinewy with unconquerable resolution.

Alas! America have we seen, though only in her early youth, already to hospital brought. There have we watched these soldiers, many of them only boys in years-mark'd their decorum, their religious nature and fortitude, and their sweet affection. Wholesome, truly. For at the front, and through the camps, in countless tents, stood the regimental, brigade division hospitals; while everywhere amid the land, in or near cities, rose clusters of huge, whitewashed, crowded onestory wooden barracks; and there ruled agony with bitter scourge, yet seldom brought a cry; and there stalk'd death by day and night along the narrow aisles between the rows of cots, or by the blankets on the ground, and touch'd lightly many a poor sufferer, often with blessed, welcome touch.

I know not whether I shall be understood, but I realize that it is finally from what I learn'd personally mixing in such scenes that I am now penning these pages. What have we here, if not, towering above all talk and argument, the plentifully-supplied, last-needed proof of democracy, in its personalities? Curiously enough, too, the proof on this point comes, I should say, every bit as much from the south, as from the north. Although I have spoken only of the latter, yet I deliberately include all. Grand, common stock! to me the accomplish'd and convincing growth, prophetic of the future; proof undeniable to sharpest sense, of perfect beauty, tenderness and pluck, that never feudal lord, nor Greek, nor Roman breed, yet rivall'd. Let no tongue ever speak in disparagement of the American races, north or south, to one who has been through the war in the great army hospitals.

Meantime, general humanity has always, in every department, been full of perverse maleficence, and is so yet. . I myself see clearly enough the crude, defective streaks in all the strata of the common people; the specimens and vast collections of the ignorant, the credulous, the unfit and uncouth, the incapable, and the very low and poor. The eminent person ... sneeringly asks whether we expect to elevate and improve a nation's politics by absorbing such morbid collections and qualities therein. The point is a formidable one, and there will doubtless always be numbers of solid and reflective citizens who will never get over it. Our answer is general, and is involved in the scope and letter of this essay. We believe the ulterior object of political and all other government (having, of course, provided for the police, the safety of life, property, and for the basic statute and common law, and their administration, always first in order), to be among the rest, not merely to rule, to repress disorder, etc., but to develop, to open up to cultivation, to encourage the possibilities of all beneficent and manly outcroppage, and of that aspiration for independence, and the pride and self-respect latent in all characters. (Or,

if there be exceptions, we cannot, fixing our eyes on them alone. make theirs the rule for all.). . .

Political democracy, as it exists and practically works in America, with all its threatening evils, supplies a training-school for making first-class men. It is life's gymnasium, not of good only, but of all. We try often, though we fall back often. A brave delight, fit for freedom's athletes, fills these arenas, and fully satisfies, out of the action in them, irrespective of success. Whatever we do not attain, we at any rate attain the experiences of the fight, the hardening of the strong campaign, and throb with currents of attempt at least. Time is ample. Let the victors come after us. Not for nothing does evil play its part among us. Judging from the main portions of the history of the world, so far, justice is always in jeopardy, peace walks amid hourly pitfalls, and of slavery, misery, meanness, the craft of tyrants and the credulity of the populace, in some of their protean forms, no voice can at any time say, They are not. The clouds break a little, and the sun shines out — but soon and certain the lowering darkness falls again, as if to last forever. Yet is there an immortal courage and prophecy in every sane soul that cannot, must not, under any circumstances, capitulate. Vive, the attack - the perennial assault! Vive, the unpopular cause the spirit that audaciously aims the never-abandon'd efforts, pursued the same amid opposing proofs and precedents.

BATTLE OF BULL RUN, JULY, 1861

WALT WHITMAN

[From Specimen Days, published in 1883. The retreat of the Union army into Washington is portrayed with unusual vividness. The army came from the battlefield in Virginia, twenty-five miles away, crossing the Potomac over the Long Bridge into Washington. The battle of Bull Run takes its name from a small river near which the battle was fought. The Union forces were commanded by General McDowell, the Confederates by General Beauregard and

General Joseph E. Johnston. About a year later, Lee defeated Pope near the same spot in what is called the second battle of Bull Run. These two battles are sometimes spoken of as the first and second battles of Manassas, because they were fought near the railway junction of that name.]

THE defeated troops commenced pouring into Washington over the Long Bridge at daylight on Monday, 22d day drizzling all through with rain. The Saturday and Sunday of the battle (20th, 21st) had been parched and hot to an extremethe dust, the grime and smoke, in layers, sweated in, followed by other layers again sweated in, absorb'd by those excited souls their clothes all saturated with the clay-powder filling the air stirr'd up everywhere on the dry roads and trodden fields by the regiments, swarming wagons, artillery, etc., all the men with this coating of murk and sweat and rain, now recoiling back, pouring over the Long Bridge - a horrible march of twenty miles, returning to Washington baffl'd, humiliated, panic-struck. Where are the vaunts and the proud boasts with which you went forth? Where are your banners, and your bands of music, and your ropes to bring back your prisoners? Well, there isn't a band playing- and there isn't a flag but clings ashamed and lank to its staff.

The sun rises, but shines not. The men appear, at first sparsely and shame-faced enough, then thicker, in the streets of Washington - appear in Pennsylvania Avenue and on the steps and basement entrances. They come in disorderly mobs, some in squads, stragglers, companies. Occasionally, a rare regiment in perfect order, with its officers (some gaps, dead, the true braves), marching in silence, with lowering faces, stern, weary to sinking, all black and dirty, but every man with his musket, and stepping alive; but these are the exceptions. ..

During the forenoon Washington gets all over motley with these defeated soldiers queer-looking objects, strange eyes and faces, drench'd (the steady rain drizzles all day) and fearfully worn, hungry, haggard, blister'd in the feet. Good