Winston Churchill said the people of the United States will always do the right thing in the end. They will explore all other possible courses of action; then they will do the right thing.

The people burning bright with the joy of being alive is how Walt Whitman saw the people. Democracy is fabulously succeeding every moment in every person is his message.

Jeffrey Meyers writes helpfully that two huge influences on Walt Whitman were

1. Alexix de Tocqueville and

2. William Blake.


Yes. De Tocqueville travelled around America, talked to many people, and noticed many more people. He noticed for example that Americans tended to form groups to socialize and to get things done far beyond anything de Tocqueville had seen elsewhere.

Whitman travelled around American, talked to and noticed people and saw them all together as a group in the way that Blake saw many things, with an intense mystical glow.