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"In metaphysical points, here is what I guess about pure and positive truths," undated, Walt Whitman Papers. Volume 67.
Translation:
In Metaphysical points, here is what I guess about pure and positive truths. I guess that after all reasoning and analogy and their most palpable demonstrations of any thing, we have the real satisfaction only when the soul tells and tests by its own arc-chemic power – superior to the learnedest proofs, as one glance of living sight is more than quarto volumes of description and of maps. – There is something in vast erudition melancholy and fruitless as an Arctic sea. – With most men it is a slow dream, dreamed in a moving fog. – So complacent! So much body and muscle; fine legs to walk, - large supple hands – but the eyes are owl’s eyes, and the heart is a mackerel’s heart. – These words are for the great men, the gigantic few that have plunged themselves deep through density and confusion and pushed back the jealous coverings of the earth, and brought out the true and great things, and the sweet things, and being then like oranges, rounder and riper than all the rest, among our literature and science. – These words are for the five or six grand poets, too; and the masters of artists. I waste no ink, nor my throat on the ever-deploying armies of professors, authors, lawyers, teachers, and what not. Of them we expect that they be very learned, and nothing more.
What gentlemen! What then? Do you suppose it is for your geology and your chemistry and your mathematics
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"Inaugural Address of the President of the United States on the Fourth of March, 1861".
In his First Inaugural Address, seen here in a rare Senate printing, President Lincoln decried secession as unconstitutional and undemocratic. By then, seven of an eventual eleven southern states had declared that they were seceding to form the Confederate States of America. Lincoln affirmed to the South that his administration would not interfere with slavery where it was and also held fast to his anti-slavery commitment by firmly opposing any expansion of slavery. He spoke directly to the seceding states: “You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors.” Many abolitionists and enslaved people, however, believed that the war for emancipation had arrived.Tags lincoln-section-3 -
"It is generally believed in Washington that the President is in favor of a general exchange," undated, Walt Whitman Papers, Volume 55.
This is a rough draft of a letter eventually published as letters to several newspaper editors urging a speedy exchange of Civil War prisoners. This topic was personal for Whitman. His brother, George Whitman, a soldier in the Union army, was captured in 1864 by the Confederates. -
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"Le procès de Haute Trahison -Le conseil de guerre,” (The High Treason Trial -The Council of War)
On 22 December 1894, a military court-martial convicted Alfred Dreyfus for treason and sentenced him to indefinite deportation. Since October, accusations circulated that Dreyfus had sold military secrets to the Germans, France’s sworn enemies since the disastrous 1870 Franco-Prussian war. Though the reliability of the court’s verdict was challenged, due to its shaky evidence such as penmanship and unpublished secret reports, the military stuck to its story.
The news magazine L’Illustration recorded the solemnity of the courtroom. Dreyfus turns to face a three-person panel seated beneath a painting of Christ crucified—a clear parallel to Dreyfus’s martyrdom by a military determined to preserve its honor. In its crisp lines and careful attention to detail, L’Illustration represented the trial in a calmly factual style without the sensationalism and excitement that characterized most newspaper reports of the Affair. -
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"Lincoln / Yours truly / A. Lincoln / Hamlin".
Abraham Lincoln was seen by many in his party as the most electable of the potential Republican presidential candidates, in part because of his earlier strong showing in his debates against Stephen Douglas. The Republican platform sought to unite a broad range of voters, including anti-immigrant Know Nothings, former Whigs, Radical Republicans, and abolitionists. Its key plank asserted that freedom should be established nationally, refuting that either Congress or the territorial legislatures had the power to make slavery legal in new states. Despite not even being on the ballot in the majority of the southern states, Lincoln won the presidency decisively by carrying a strong majority in the more populous northern states and thus securing a majority in the Electoral College. He carried only 40 percent of the popular vote.Tags lincoln-section-2 -
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