Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Published Writings
  3. Periodicals
  4. Journalism
  5. per.01298

[We observe from our friend]

About This Item

  • Title: [We observe from our friend]
  • Date: 22 April 1858
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: per.01298
  • Source: Brooklyn Daily Times, 22 April 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 Jamie DeRousse Jason Stacy Stephanie Blalock Karie Cobb
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "[We observe from our friend]." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 16 July 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: per.01298.xml (TEI)
image 1image 2image 3image 4cropped image 1

☞We observe from our friend Pink’s paper, published in Iroquois Co., Illinois, that Senator Douglas1 has lost nothing in the esteem of his constituents by his opposition to the Lecompton Constitution.2 Long John Wentworth3 is trying to sow division between the Douglas men and the President’s friends, in order to procure his own election to the U.S. Senate, as a Republican; but Douglas’s friends are confident of being able to bring about his re-election. Twenty-three counties of Southern Illinois, which gave 1,183 votes for Fremont,4 and 21,517 for Buchanan,5 have endorsed Douglas in their conventions, and have passed resolutions against the Lecompton plan.

Notes:

1. 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]

2. The Lecompton Constitution of 1857 was written by pro-slavery forces in Kansas. President Buchanan supported it and it was eventually approved by the Senate, but dismissed by the House. Ultimately, Kansas held another local election which resulted in the Constitution’s final rejection. [back]

3. John Wentworth (1815–1888) was a representative from Illinois and mayor of Chicago. [back]

4. John C. Fremont (1813–1890) was a general during the Mexican-American War and a senator from California. He ran against James Buchanan as a Republican in the 1856 presidential election. [back]

5. 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]

Back to top