Nor, except for that terrible
dislocation and overturn, would these States, as they are, exist
to-day.
It is certain to me that the United States, by virtue of that war and
its results, and through that and them only, are now ready to enter,
and must certainly enter, upon their genuine career in history, as
no more torn and divided in their spinal requisites, but a great
homogeneous Nation--free States all--a moral and political unity in
variety, such as Nature shows in her grandest physical works, and as
much greater than any mere work of Nature, as the moral and political,
the work of man, his mind, his soul, are, in their loftiest sense,
greater than the merely physical. Out of that war not only has the
nationality of the States escaped from being strangled, but more than
any of the rest, and, in my opinion, more than the north itself, the
vital heart and breath of the south have escaped as from the pressure
of a general nightmare, and are henceforth to enter on a life,
development, and active freedom, whose realities are certain in the
future, notwithstanding all the southern vexations of the hour--a
development which could not possibly have been achiev'd on any less
terms, or by any other means than that grim lesson, or something
equivalent to it. And I predict that the south is yet to outstrip the
north.
PREFACES TO "LEAVES OF GRASS"
PREFACE, 1855 _To first issue of Leaves of Grass. _Brooklyn, N.Y._
America does not repel the past, or what the past has produced under
its forms, or amid other politics, or the idea of castes, or the old
religions--accepts the lesson with calmness--is not impatient because
the slough still sticks to opinions and manners in literature, while
the life which served its requirements has passed into the new life
of the new forms--perceives that the corpse is slowly borne from the
eating and sleeping rooms of the house--perceives that it waits a
little while in the door--that it was fittest for its days--that
its action has descended to the stalwart and well-shaped heir who
approaches--and that he shall be fittest for his days.
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