The Wilmot Proviso

The Wilmot Proviso, initiated in 1846 by Congressman David Wilmot, called for the end of slavery in states acquired from Mexico during and subsequent to the Mexico-American war. Whitman supported the proviso, though it eventually failed in the Senate, and is now historically regarded as one of the events leading to the Civil War. This proviso reflected enhanced division between the North and South regarding slavery. 

I have mixed thoughts about Whitman and racism from “Song of Myself.” I can’t seem to decipher his position on it. For the time, it probably seemed provocative and possibly seditious for him to harbor a runway slave, yet, when he lists among the jobs and activities of persons in Canto 16, he mentions “the quadroon girl is sold at the auction-stand” as just one activity among others without explicitly denouncing it. If his interest is social reform, he should probably say something by way of resistance. I think this is an example of Whitman’s encoded inconsistencies, his contradictions that led him to famously exclaim: “Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself (I am large, I contain multitudes.).” 

Maybe, but to me Whitman is the ultimate relativist, and cannot provide a moral compass by which we may guide our actions.  He is as “wicked” as “righteous;” he simply belongs to every position to which one can ascribe. He loves nature, but has no qualms with killing animals for sport. He is a loafer, but also a capitalist. For what other reason might one work hard and compile one’s poems? They are no longer “thoughts,” but thereby become commodities.