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A True American

About This Item

  • Title: A True American
  • Date: 22 June 1857
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: per.00987
  • Source: Brooklyn Daily Times, 22 June 1857: 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: Tara Ballard Samantha Gilmore Thara Michaelis Francesca Boston Stephanie Blalock Karie Cobb
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "A True American." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 16 July 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: per.00987.xml (TEI)
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A TRUE AMERICAN.

The Albany Journal says:

“Robert J. Walker is not a man to be trusted.1 Supremely selfish, he is as ready to betray friends as to punish enemies—for a price. His professions to day are no guarantee of his actions to-morrow. Interest is his principle; and he is quite as ready to speculate in politics as in stocks.”

Such charges may answer for a political tirade, but they do not affect Walker’s merits as Governor of Kansas,—and we doubt whether the charges are true. Any how, if that man is cunning enough to see beneath the surface of party, and found his hopes on doing fair and square things, he fetches his cunning to a good market.

We are well pleased with R.J. Walker’s late speech at Topeka, and especially pleased at the manner of it. So much is in manner! The Territorial Governor was continually interrupted by his different hearers, with true Western freedom, making all sorts of comments, and asking all sorts of questions. These came thick and heavy—but the Governor preserved his good nature, his nonchalance, and his intellectual readiness. There was something characteristic in the scene; it was one not to be witnessed out of America—probably not out of the West. That Walker carried himself so well, and came out with credit, proves him a true American in spirit. His manner is the proof, for, we repeat, that is always the proof.

This is a great deal more than can be said of most of our public men. Who of them shows the like ease, the Democratic friendliness, the readiness, the capacity of being just as much at home among “border ruffians” as any where?

Notes:

1. Robert J. Walker (1801–1869) served as a Mississippi Senator between 1835 and 1845 and Secretary of Treasury between 1845 and 1849. During a contentious period between abolitionists and anti-abolitionists regarding slavery, Walker was appointed as the fourth territorial governor of Kansas from May to November of 1857. [back]

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