Content:
Dated "Oct 2 '76" on the last page, this
manuscript is a draft of Whitman's speech on Thomas Paine, which was
first published in the
New York Daily
Tribune
(29 January 1877) as "Walt Whitman on Thomas Paine." This
piece was later published in
Specimen Days
(1882–1883) as "In Memory of Thomas Paine" before being
collected in
Complete Prose Works
(1892).