<Text id=WhiSPro>
<Author>Whitman, Walt</Author>
<Title>Supplementary Prose</Title>
<Edition>Complete Poetry and Collected Prose. New York: Literary Classics of the U.S., 1982.</Edition>
<Date>1892</Date>
<body>
<loc><locdoc>WhiSPro1307</locdoc><milestone n=1307>
<div0 type=part n=1>
<p> <i>The Eighteenth Presidency!</i> (1)
<p> <i>Voice of Walt Whitman to each Young Man in the
<p> Nation, North, South, East, and West</i>
<p> FIRST, WHO ARE THE NATION?
<p>Before the American era, the programme of the
classes of a nation read thus, first the king, second the
noblemen and gentry, third the great mass of mechanics,
farmers, men following the water, and all laboring persons.
The first and second classes are unknown to the theory of
the government of These States; the likes of the class rated
third on the old programme were intended to be, and are in
fact, and to all intents and purposes, the American nation,
t . . .
