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[The air smells of gun-powder]

About This Item

  • Title: [The air smells of gun-powder]
  • Date: 27 December 1858
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: per.00849
  • Source: Brooklyn Daily Times, 27 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 Samantha Gilmore Tara Ballard Kevin McMullen Karie Cobb
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "[The air smells of gun-powder]." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 17 July 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: per.00849.xml (TEI)
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☞The air smells of gun-powder. The papers teem with defiant cartels and warlike notes. Senator Slidell,1 and now Senator Jones,2 impeaching Douglas's veracity,3 indicate the resolve of the Administration, as they could not "kill off" the Little Giant politically, to have him killed literally by hired Senatorial fire eating bullies.

Notes:

1. John Slidell (1793–1871) was a Louisiana senator and diplomat for the Confederacy; it is said that Slidell conspired alongside George W. Jones of Iowa to upset Stephen Douglas’s political power. [back]

2. George W. Jones (1804–1896) fought alongside Jefferson Davis in the Black Hawk War; a businessman, territorial delegate and enslaver in Iowa, Jones was a supporter of the Fugitive Slave Act and the Kansas-Nebraska Act. It is said that Jones conspired alongside John Slidell to upset Stephen Douglas’s political power. [back]

3. Stephen Arnold Douglas (1813–1861), nicknamed the "Little Giant," was a U.S. Senator from Illinois from 1847 to 1861. Douglas promoted the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 and ran for President against Abraham Lincoln in 1860. He was a well-known proponent of "Popular Sovereignty," the idea that the question of slavery should be left for voters of a given state to decide. For more information, see T. Gregory Garvey, "Douglas, Stephen Arnold (1813–1861)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]

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