“The genius of the United States is not best or most in its executives or legislatures, nor in its ambassadors or authors or colleges or churches ... but always most in the common people,” Walt Whitman wrote in his preface to “Leave of Grass,” lauding "... their deathless attachment to freedom.”

As satisfying as it is to offer such quotes at face value, as eternal truths — Walt Whitman said it, he’s famous, so it must be true — this one might merit a little picking apart.

Opinion

First, the line was written in 1855. Meaning the American public’s attachment to freedom wasn’t so deathless that the country wouldn’t soon be ripped apart in civil war over whether fellow human beings should be kept as slaves.

Who were these common people, anyway? Who are they now? The millions who turned out

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