Of no use are the men who study to do exactly as was done before, who can never understand that today is a new day. There never was such a combination as this of ours, and the rules to meet it are not set down in any history. We want men of original perception and original action, who can open their eyes wider than to a nationality—namely, to considerations of benefit to the human race—can act in the interest of civilization; men of elastic, men of moral mind, who can live in the moment and take a step forward. Columbus was no backward-creeping crab, nor was Martin Luther, nor John Adams, nor Patrick Henry, nor Thomas Jefferson; and the Genius or Destiny of America is no log or sluggard, but a man incessantly advancing, as the shadow on the dial's face, or the heavenly body by whose light it is marked.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
ADDRESS TO AMERICA
(From a Commencement Poem, Dartmouth College. 1872)
As a strong bird on pinions free,
Joyous, the amplest spaces heavenward cleaving,
One song, America, before I go,
I'd sing, o'er all the rest, with trumpet sound,
For thee, the Future.
Sail—sail thy best, Ship of Democracy!
Of value is thy freight—'tis not the Present only,
The Past is also stored in thee!
Thou holdest not the venture of thyself alone—
Not of thy western continent alone;
Earth's résumé entire floats on thy keel, O Ship—
Is steadied by thy spars.
With thee Time voyages in trust,
The antecedent nations sink or swim with thee;
With all their ancient struggles, martyrs, heroes, epics, wars,
Thou bears't the other continents;
Theirs, theirs as much as thine, the destination-port triumphant,
Steer, steer with good strong hand and wary eye—
O helmsman—thou carryest great companions,
Venerable, priestly Asia sails this day with thee,
And royal, feudal Europe sails with thee.
Walt Whitman
AMERICA
O mother of a mighty race,
Yet lovely in thy youthful grace!
The elder dames, thy haughty peers,
Admire and hate thy blooming years;
With words of shame
And taunts of scorn they join thy name....