And, topping Democracy, this most alluring record, that it alone can bind and ever seeks to bind, all nations, all men, of however various and distant lands, into a brotherhood, a family. It is the old, yet ever modern, dream of Earth, out of her eldest and her youngest, her fond philosophers and poets. Not that half only, Individualism, which isolates. There is another half, which is Adhesiveness or Love, that fuses, ties and aggregates, making the races comrades, and fraternizing all. Both are to be vitalized by Religion, (sole worthiest elevator of man or State,) breathing into the proud, material tissues, the breath of life. For I say at the core of Democracy, finally, is the Religious element. All the Religions, old and new are there. Nor may the Scheme step forth, clothed in resplendent beauty and command, till those, bearing the best the latest fruit, the Spiritual, the aspirational, shall fully appear..
A portion of our pages we must indite with reference toward Europe, especially the British part of it, more than our own land, and thus, perhaps not absolutely needed for the home reader. But the whole question hangs together, and fastens and links all peoples,. The Liberalist of to-day has this advantage over antique or medieval times, that his doctrine seeks not only to universalize, but to individualize. Then the great word Solidarity has arisen.
Walt Whitman: Democratic Vistas 1871
He'd seen the Civil War and the post-war flowering of corruption like few others got the chance to. He clearly knew that secular ethics wasn't enough to pull a country towards egaligarian democracy.
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