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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
A CERTAIN POET ON THE DEBATES, by EDGAR LEE MASTERS Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Why do I speak with such authority? Last Line: And drop a tear on all the sorry waste. Subject(s): Lincoln-douglas Debates; Slavery; Serfs | |||
Why do I speak with such authority? I know this matter through from A to Z; I know it just as well as Lincoln knows it. There's not a document I have not studied From Elliott's Debates to this Le Compton Kansas constitution that has escaped My mind's analysis. And you will see Lincoln is beaten now. You are absurd To think he'll win the presidency for losing The senatorship -- clean crazy all of you! Who am I? Well, it makes no difference. I am a mind, a mere intelligence Going about this year of fifty-eight An observer and a listener. Gabriel Could be no more impersonal than I. I've followed up these fellows like the boy That trails the circus, clear from Ottawa To Freeport, Charleston, Galesburg, Quincy, Alton; And made my way at first with sawing wood, Later by selling razors, soap and strops; And just to hear the speaking, see the crowds -- These crowds that leave the shop and farms, these crowds Solemn and noisy, rapt, tumultuous, Sober and drunk, who carry whips and spit Tobacco juice around and drink and eat. The babies squall, wagons and democrats Befog the air with dust, and oh, the heat! Yet though these crowds will settle like the dust In graves all over Illinois, nothing leave Of what, or who they were, no less these crowds Have reason at the centre like the sun; Dimmed to the eyes this side; the sun is there! But yet the sun knows it is there -- the dust Rises and shows the sun -- there you have thought Which is now, will be handed down of this -- These days. Oh, yes, the dust will rise at last When evening -- that's reflection, settles down; And then you'll see a star -- first magnitude, The name is Lincoln! I have read. I know. Never in Rome or Greece were such debates, Never in all this world. Look at the theme: Slavery in a republic! As for men, Where is their equal? Is it Pericles, Demosthenes or Cicero, here with us, Great Webster? And the setting, think of that! Here in this western prairie state they pass From town to town, stand up before the mass, And battle with their wits -- set falcons loose Of swift and ravenous logic to devour The other's flights. The crowds perceive the trend, Gather enough to guide them and persuade, But much of it is over them. You heard Lincoln to-day, when he had subtilized The point to deadly ether, say to them: "An audience like this will scarcely see The force of what I say, but minds well trained Will follow me and see." That is the point. Out of this popular oratory rises A durable spire of truth. This Lincoln leaves Great thought and beauty to the race. And yet Douglas will be our senator, and Seward Our President two years from now. As Webster Could never win the prize, this Lincoln too Will fail to win it. Why, you silly fools! Lincoln has sprained his arms and back for good -- But he has laid the South out flat and cold, And broken the slavocracy in two. He did it with one question; asking that He made the Little Giant cough and stammer, And blush his guilt before America. Oh, yes, he answered well enough to win This contest here in Illinois; but look, The Southern press is after him already, They scent the carcass moved, withdrawn a little; They croak like buzzards -- and there will be war Between the eagles and the buzzards now, Perhaps when Seward is elected; truly If Lincoln should be chosen, as he won't. It isn't that this Douglas isn't a master. It is that he is caught between the mill-stones. The upper is this Kansas and Nebraska, The lower is Dred Scott -- and I am glad! Why did he father Kansas and Nebraska? Why did he flout the ancient ordinance Of 1787, which kept out This curse of slavery, out of Illinois, But brought us liberty of press and speech, The bill of rights? Did Congress have the power To pass this ordinance of '87? Or did it lack the power, because the states That came into the union with their slaves Might keep their slaves, reclaim as fugitive Their slaves on freedom's soil? Well, if it be That Congress had the power to plaster down The ordinance of 1787 Upon this Illinois, this great Northwest, It had the power to say the western land Of Kansas and Nebraska should be free As territories ruled from Washington And no imperialism! So, I say again It serves this Douglas right to be destroyed, And ground to powder for this act of his, This Kansas and Nebraska. Well, all right. It sounds all right, it makes the idiots whoop To hear the Little Giant say he favors The people's rule in Kansas and Nebraska. Their right to say they'll have this slavery Or have it not -- yes, popular sovereignty! -- But why not let the people vote on God, Or choose a king, or take me, all the whites, And make us slaves? It may be so, if truth Is just a mockery and there's nothing real In human thought at all -- one thing is true As anything, and everything is false. Thus ruin smites the temple of our life, And all of us lie down as beasts and grunt Around its broken arches and its columns! All right! He gets his Kansas and Nebraska. That makes him president! Not on your life! Momus is watching, growls a horrid laugh And whispers something to Slavocracy, Which whispers it to Taney -- and behold The prophets and the guardians of the ark Of the covenant declare a slave's a slave, And can be taken to a territory, And kept there in the face of national law That makes the territory free. Or else, Were this not so, the Congress is supreme, Has slipped the chain of the organic law, Which recognizes slavery. What is this But just imperialism? God Almighty! They're all for freedom, a republic too. Kansas, Nebraska -- let the people rule. Dred Scott: -- the Congress is a Parliament Like England has, unless it pins and tucks The constitution round its pocky body. That may be true, but then the question is: Is slavery charactered upon the robe, And must the figure of the slave be seen Wherever Congress walks? I'll come to that. The point is now that Douglas has been caught Between his Kansas and Nebraska act, And Dred Scott never his. And being lawful, Obedient to the law and to the courts -- You heard him hammer Lincoln as a man Who flouted courts -- while he, the Little Giant, Obeyed the laws -- oh, yes! -- So, being lawful, As I began, must hold in level hands Dred Scott in one, and in the other hand This Kansas and Nebraska. Very good. Lincoln has got him now, and out of all This rhetoric, these sorties half successful, These scrimmages with Lincoln, half perplexed, You find your Little Giant on his back With Lincoln over him and pinning shoulders Down to the floor. Here is the wrestling trick: Can any territory keep this slavery Out lawfully, that is, against the wish Of any citizen? What is the answer? If you say yes, where is Dred Scott? If no, How do the people rule? What is his answer? Why, yes, he says, a territory can Keep slavery out. Dred Scott still sends it there, But then the people rule, and if the people There in Nebraska make it hot for slavery By local law and custom, frowns and blows, It will not thrive. That satisfied the crowd; Enough at least, elects him Senator, But loses him the South, the golden prize, Splits up the country, gives us war in time, When argument is silenced cannon boom -- And when your Seward comes to Washington The South secedes. Now, listen for a moment! What is Abe Lincoln's genealogy In faith political? Sired by the Federalists, And mothered by the Whigs. A tariff man; Believes too in the Bank -- tariffs and banks Filched from the plenary stores of privilege By hands that break the shackles of the law. He's born a Whig, has turned Republican, What is his blood? Why, liberal construction, Twisting the constitution out of shape, And tearing holes in it to let the Congress Escape and wander -- where? Why, anywhere! And though it be that touching slavery There's nothing which forbids the Congress acting In freedom's way -- and that's the very point -- And granting that the Constitution's over The territories, still the Congress can Bring freedom there -- this theory is akin To loose construction, scarcely can be told From loose construction. For you see, if freedom, Since Congress is not hampered, can be brought, Why not then slavery, if it be not hampered? And why not colonies, dependencies, Ruled just as Congress wills, if never a word Lies in our charter to forbid or grant The power to do it. Well, there'll be a war, And hell thereafter. So you like my talk! What is my name? Why, Satan is my name -- And I go wandering on the earth to see, Walk to and fro and laugh and drop a tear In spite of all my laughter. Tears and laughter For ideas in the heads of men that seethe, Pop, crackle, ferment, blow up bottles, kegs, Spill and destroy bacteria on the floor Of epochs, ruin wisdoms, cultures, faiths. Time scrubs the floor of all such verses -- Time Matures fresh grapes, new ferments, and repeats The old catastrophes; and hence I laugh, And drop a tear on all the sorry waste. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...JOY IN THE WOODS by CLAUDE MCKAY ELIZABETH KECKLEY: 30 YEARS A SLAVE AND 4 YEARS IN THE WHITE HOUSE by E. ETHELBERT MILLER EMANCIPATION by ELIZABETH ALEXANDER JOHN BROWN'S BODY by STEPHEN VINCENT BENET SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: ALEXANDER THROCKMORTON by EDGAR LEE MASTERS |
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