“A Yet More Terrible and More Deeply Complicated Problem”: Walt Whitman, Race, Reconstruction, and American Democracy

Whitman’s Undemocratic Vistas: Mortal Anxiety, National Glory, White Supremacy

“…After DC Black citizens, who obtained the right to vote in 1865, celebrated their role in electing the Radical Republican Sayles Jenks Bowen to the office of mayor in June 1868, Whitman wrote in a letter to his mother,We had the strangest procession here last Tuesday night, about 3000 darkeys, old & young, men & women … turned out in honor of their victory in electing the Mayor, Mr. Bowen—the men were all armed with clubs or pistols … there was a string went along the sidewalk in single file with bludgeons & sticks, yelling & gesticulating like madmen—it was quite comical, yet very disgusting & alarming in some respects—They were very insolent, & altogether it was a strange sight—they looked like so many wild brutes let loose. (1961, 34–5)As Folsom notes, Whitman’s “comment about how Bowen’s election was ‘ their victory’ underscores his belief that a major problem with black suffrage was that blacks would vote only in a bloc and would not think as individuals about issues and candidates” (2018, 542–3). Given this biographical context, it is highly probable—if not certain—that the “authoritative tutelage” passage was Whitman’s veiled way of making space for the suspension or limitation of Black suffrage until African Americans had education that the white community judged sufficient.…”

“…The answer stems from the fact that Vistas is engaged in a complicated rhetorical balancing act in which Whitman is trying to reconcile northern white and southern white audiences into a reunited literary constituency; in other words, Vistas employs a sectionally reconciliationist literary strategy (Blight 2001; cf. Beltrán 2011, 67–74; Folsom 2018, 548–9). On the one side are defeated Confederates—whom Whitman takes pains throughout Vistas to recognize as national brethren.…”

“… 2 Whitman’s racism and imperialism are well known in American literary scholarship. Among the most important discussions are Clark (1955), González de la Garza (1971), Erkkila (1989; 1994), Reynolds (1995), Folsom (1995; 2010; 2018), and Grünzweig (2006). Contemporary democratic theorists engaging Whitman largely ignore this scholarship (but for two important exceptions, see Beltrán [2011] and Dahl [2018]).…”