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Walt Whitman's Caution

About This Item

  • Title: Walt Whitman's Caution
  • Date: Between 1856 and 1860
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: amh.00009
  • Source: Amherst College Archives and Special Collections. Transcribed from digital images of the original. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the manuscripts, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Editorial note: "Walt Whitman's Caution" was first published as one of the "Messenger Leaves" in the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass. The poem was later retitled "To the States." This manuscript was likely composed in the years immediately preceding the poem's first publication in 1860.
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "Walt Whitman's Caution." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 05 November 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: amh.00009.xml (TEI)

Key

Textual Feature Appearance
Overwritten brown with strikethrough
Added inline purple with double underline
Uncertain gray with wavy underline
Supplied from another source turquoise with brackets
Metamark green with triple underline
Long deletion gray background with top and bottom border
  [begin leaf 1 recto] 35.00 | clsx 39—

Walt Whitman's Caution.

To tThe States, or any one of  
 them, or any city of The  
 States, Resist much, Obey  
 little, Once unquestioning obedience,  
 once fully enslaved, Once fully enslaved, no nation,  
 race, city, of this earth,  
 ever afterward resumes  
 its liberty.— [illegible]mn.   [begin leaf 1 verso]
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