Content:
References to the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 indicate that parts of this manuscript were likely written in the early 1850s. Edward Grier writes that it "seems to be a composite manuscript assembled, in characteristic Whitman fashion, from fragments large and small, with several discontinuities" which were "combined into one essay or speech about 1856 and revised in minor detail . . . in 1858 or later" (
Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts
[New York: New York University Press, 1984], 6:2171–2172). Grier explains the discontinuities in more detail in his headnote to the transcription of this manuscript. In that headnote he also speculates about the significance of the mathematical calculations found on the versos of several of the leaves. Grier notes that Whitman's "emphasis, especially in the early pages, on the Constitution as a contract reflects his reading of at least parts of
The Social Contract
" by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (6:2171). In theme, tone, and some of the wording, this manuscript bears a strong resemblance to "The Eighteenth Presidency!" an unpublished political essay that Whitman wrote in or around 1856. For more on that essay, see David Haven Blake, "'Eighteenth Presidency!, The' (1928)," in
Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia,
ed. J. R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998), 201–203. The leaves of this manuscript have been numbered, possibly by Whitman himself.
Content:
A manuscript draft of the title and opening lines of "The Eighteenth Presidency!" a political pamphlet about the 1856 Presidential election that remained unpublished in Whitman's lifetime, but was written in late 1855 or 1856. The manuscript is collected in a bound
book under the general title
Walt Whitman: A Series of Six
Pieces, Original Holograph Manuscripts
.
Content:
A manuscript about the California Vigilance Committee of the early and mid-1850s, these scraps contain lanuage similar to that found in Whitman's complete but unpublished essay "The Eighteenth Presidency!" The manuscript alludes to two of the candidates in the 1856 U.S. Presidential election, James Buchanan and Millard Fillmore, who Whitman refers to as "two old traitors," echoing a description of them as "two galvanized old men" in "The Eighteenth Presidency!".
Whitman Archive Title: recommendation to the young
Content:
A prose fragment dealing with political independence that contains phrases and ideas similar to those found in Whitman's complete but unpublished essay "The Eighteenth Presidency!" The essay was subtitled "Voice of Walt Whitman to each Young Man in the Naton, North, South, East, and West," a line which is echoed in this manuscript. The reverse contains notes for poetry, including phrases which appear in section 6 of the final version of"Starting from Paumanok," first published as "Proto-Leaf" in the 1860–1861
Leaves of Grass
, and in "Mediums," first published in the 1867
Leaves
.
