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Not So Bad as He Seems

About This Item

  • Title: Not So Bad as He Seems
  • Date: 6 December 1858
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: per.00848
  • Source: Brooklyn Daily Times, 6 December 1858: 2. Our transcription is based on a digital image of a microfilm scan of the original issue. Microfilm of original issue held at Pennsylvania State University Libraries. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the journalism, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Editorial note: This piece is unsigned, as was the case for most of Whitman's journalism. However, this editorial is part of a series of texts that deal with a coherent theme that has been identified by the Whitman Archive journalism team as likely authored by Whitman. This decision is based on a combination of historical and (auto)biographical accounts, similarity to contemporary Whitman writings, a history of scholarly attribution, extant clippings retained by Whitman, computational stylometric analysis, and, in some cases, manuscript evidence in Whitman’s hand.
  • Contributors to digital file: Kaylen Michaelis Tara Ballard Stephanie Blalock Karie Cobb
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "Not So Bad as He Seems." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 17 July 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: per.00848.xml (TEI)
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NOT SO BAD AS HE SEEMS.—

The sentiments entertained by Senator Seward,1 as divulged in his great Rochester speech in reference to the prospective extinction of slavery, have, strange to say, been common to all the Democratic leaders, not excepting even Mr. Buchanan.2 The latter, in 1844, advocated the annexation of Texas because it would open an outlet through which slavery might pass the Del Norte and be lost in Mexico. Judge Breese, the administration candidate against Douglas, supported the annexation of Texas because it would put means in operation tending to the total extinction of Slavery.3 Senators Dickinson, Norris and others also apologized for their pro-slavery course by making out they were really subserving the cause of freedom which they professed greatly to cherish;4 and yet Governor Seward is denounced by the same men because fourteen years after he is so revolutionary in his ideas as to actually look forward to the time when Slavery will be extinguished by perfectly constitutional means. Horrid, isn't it!

Notes:

1. William H. Seward (1801–1872) served as a New York State senator in 1830, and U.S. senator in 1849. He would run, unsuccessfully, for the Republican presidential nomination in 1860 and instead became Secretary of State from 1861 to 1869 under Presidents Lincoln and Johnson. Whitman would clerk for Seward during the Civil War, a job he obtained with the help of a recommendation letter from Ralph Waldo Emerson. [back]

2. James Buchanan (1791–1868) was the fifteenth President of the United States (1857–1861). Late in life Whitman still considered Buchanan "perhaps the weakest of the President tribe—the very unablest" (With Walt Whitman in Camden, Monday, November 5, 1888). For more information on Whitman and his disdain for Buchanon, see also Bernard Hirschorn, ""To a President" (1860)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]

3. Sidney Breese (1800–1878) was a lawyer, state legislator, and chief justice for the Supreme Court of Illinois; his political campaigns were supported by the Anti-Douglas Illinois Democrats. [back]

4. Daniel S. Dickinson (1806–1884) was a lauded orator, a U.S. senator, and a member of the Democratic party who aspired to the presidency. [back]

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