Complete Prose Works
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.
Then still the thought returns, (like the thread-passage in overtures,)
giving the key and echo to these pages. When I pass to and fro,
different latitudes, different seasons, beholding the crowds of the
great cities, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Chicago, St.
Louis, San Francisco, New Orleans, Baltimore--when I mix with these
interminable swarms of alert, turbulent, good-natured, independent
citizens, mechanics, clerks, young persons--at the idea of this mass
of men, so fresh and free, so loving and so proud, a singular awe falls
upon me. I feel, with dejection and amazement, that among our geniuses
and talented writers or speakers, few or none have yet really spoken to
this people, created a single image-making work for them, or absorb'd
the central spirit and the idiosyncrasies which are theirs--and
which, thus, in highest ranges, so far remain entirely uncelebrated,
unexpress'd.
Dominion strong is the body's; dominion stronger is the mind's. What
has fill'd, and fills to-day our intellect, our fancy, furnishing the
standards therein, is yet foreign. The great poems, Shakspere included,
are poisonous to the idea of the pride and dignity of the common people,
the life-blood of democracy. The models of our literature, as we get
it from other lands, ultra-marine, have had their birth in courts, and
bask'd and grown in castle sunshine; all smells of princes' favors. Of
workers of a certain sort, we have, indeed, plenty, contributing after
their kind; many elegant, many learn'd, all complacent. But touch'd by
the national test, or tried by the standards of democratic personality,
they wither to ashes. I say I have not seen a single writer, artist,
lecturer, or what-not, that has confronted the voiceless but ever erect
and active, pervading, underlying will and typic aspiration of the
land, in a spirit kindred to itself. Do you call those genteel little
creatures American poets? Do you term that perpetual, pistareen,
paste-pot work, American art, American drama, taste, verse? I think I
hear, echoed as from some mountain-top afar in the west, the scornful
laugh of the Genius of these States.
Democracy, in silence, biding its time, ponders its own ideals, not of
literature and art only--not of men only, but of women. The idea of the
women of America, (extricated from this daze, this fossil and unhealthy
air which hangs about the word _lady_,) develop'd, raised to become the
robust equals, workers, and, it may be, even practical and political
deciders with the men--greater than man, we may admit, through their
divine maternity, always their towering, emblematical attribute--but
great, at any rate, as man, in all departments; or, rather, capable of
being so, soon as they realize it, and can bring themselves to give up
toys and fictions, and launch forth, as men do, amid real, independent,
stormy life.
Then, as towards our thought's finalé, (and, in that, overarching the
true scholar's lesson,) we have to say there can be no complete or
epical presentation of democracy in the aggregate, or anything like it,
at this day, because its doctrines will only be effectually incarnated
in any one branch, when, in all, their spirit is at the root and centre.
Far, far, indeed, stretch, in distance, our Vistas! How much is still
to be disentangled, freed! How long it takes to make this American world
see that it is, in itself, the final authority and reliance!
Did you, too, O friend, suppose democracy was only for elections, for
politics, and for a party name? I say democracy is only of use there
that it may pass on and come to its flower and fruits in manners, in
the highest forms of interaction between men, and their beliefs--in
religion, literature, colleges, and schools--democracy in all public and
private life, and in the army and navy.[26] I have intimated that, as a
paramount scheme, it has yet few or no full realizers and believers.
I do not see, either, that it owes any serious thanks to noted
propagandists or champions, or has been essentially help'd, though often
harm'd, by them. It has been and is carried on by all the moral forces,
and by trade, finance, machinery, intercommunications, and, in fact,
by all the developments of history, and can no more be stopp'd than the
tides, or the earth in its orbit. Doubtless, also, it resides, crude and
latent, well down in the hearts of the fair average of the American-born
people, mainly in the agricultural regions. But it is not yet, there or
anywhere, the fully-receiv'd, the fervid, the absolute faith.
I submit, therefore, that the fruition of democracy, on aught like a
grand scale, resides altogether in the future. As, under any profound
and comprehensive view of the gorgeous-composite feudal world, we see
in it, through the long ages and cycles of ages, the results of a deep,
integral, human and divine principle, or fountain, from which issued
laws, ecclesia, manners, institutes, costumes, personalities, poems,
(hitherto unequall'd,) faithfully partaking of their source, and
indeed only arising either to betoken it, or to furnish parts of that
varied-flowing display, whose centre was one and absolute--so, long
ages hence, shall the due historian or critic make at least an equal
retrospect, an equal history for the democratic principle. It too must
be adorn'd, credited with its results--then, when it, with imperial
power, through amplest time, has dominated mankind--has been the source
and test of all the moral, esthetic, social, political, and religious
expressions and institutes of the civilized world--has begotten them
in spirit and in form, and has carried them to its own unprecedented
heights--has had, (it is possible,) monastics and ascetics, more
numerous, more devout than the monks and priests of all previous
creeds--has sway'd the ages with a breadth and rectitude tallying
Nature's own--has fashion'd, systematized, and triumphantly finish'd and
carried out, in its own interest, and with unparallel'd success, a new
earth and a new man.
Thus we presume to write, as it were, upon things that exist not, and
travel by maps yet unmade, and a blank. But the throes of birth are
upon us; and we have something of this advantage in seasons of strong
formations, doubts, suspense--for then the afflatus of such themes haply
may fall upon us, more or less; and then, hot from surrounding war and
revolution, our speech, though without polish'd coherence, and a failure
by the standard called criticism, comes forth, real at least as the
lightnings.
And may-be we, these days, have, too, our own reward--(for there are yet
some, in all lands, worthy to be so encouraged.) Though not for us the
joy of entering at the last the conquer'd city--not ours the chance ever
to see with our own eyes the peerless power and splendid _eclat_ of
the democratic principle, arriv'd at meridian, filling the world with
effulgence and majesty far beyond those of past history's kings, or
all dynastic sway--there is yet, to whoever is eligible among us, the
prophetic vision, the joy of being toss'd in the brave turmoil of these
times--the promulgation and the path, obedient, lowly reverent to the
voice, the gesture of the god, or holy ghost, which others see not, hear
not--with the proud consciousness that amid whatever clouds, seductions,
or heart-wearying postponements, we have never deserted, never
despair'd, never abandon'd the faith.
So much contributed, to be conn'd well, to help prepare and brace our
edifice, our plann'd Idea--we still proceed to give it in another of its
aspects--perhaps the main, the high façade of all. For to democracy,
the leveler, the unyielding principle of the average, is surely join'd
another principle, equally unyielding, closely tracking the first,
indispensable to it, opposite, (as the sexes are opposite,) and whose
existence, confronting and ever modifying the other, often clashing,
paradoxical, yet neither of highest avail without the other,
plainly supplies to these grand cosmic politics of ours, and to the
launch'd-forth mortal dangers of republicanism, to-day or any day, the
counterpart and offset whereby Nature restrains the deadly original
relentlessness of all her first-class laws. This second principle is
individuality, the pride and centripetal isolation of a human being in
himself--identity--personalism. Whatever the name, its acceptance and
thorough infusion through the organizations of political commonalty now
shooting Aurora-like about the world, are of utmost importance, as the
principle itself is needed for very life's sake. It forms, in a sort,
or is to form, the compensating balance-wheel of the successful working
machinery of aggregate America.
And, if we think of it, what does civilization itself rest upon--and
what object has it, with its religions, arts, schools, &c., but rich,
luxuriant, varied personalism? To that, all bends; and it is because
toward such result democracy alone, on anything like Nature's scale,
breaks up the limitless fallows of humankind, and plants the seed, and
gives fair play, that its claims now precede the rest. The literature,
songs, esthetics, &c., of a country are of importance principally
because they furnish the materials and suggestions of personality
for the women and men of that country, and enforce them in a thousand
effective ways.[27] As the topmost claim of a strong consolidating
of the nationality of these States, is, that only by such powerful
compaction can the separate States secure that full and free swing
within their spheres, which is becoming to them, each after its kind,
so will individuality, with unimpeded branchings, flourish best under
imperial republican forms.
Assuming Democracy to be at present in its embryo condition, and that
the only large and satisfactory justification of it resides in the
future, mainly through the copious production of perfect characters
among the people, and through the advent of a sane and pervading
religiousness, it is with regard to the atmosphere and spaciousness
fit for such characters, and of certain nutriment and cartoon-draftings
proper for them, and indicating them for New-World purposes, that
I continue the present statement--an exploration, as of new ground,
wherein, like other primitive surveyors, I must do the best I can,
leaving it to those who come after me to do much better. (The service,
in fact, if any, must be to break a sort of first path or track, no
matter how rude and ungeometrical.)
We have frequently printed the word Democracy. Yet I cannot too often