"I Need To Learn To Read Better"

Walt Whitman notes that this is not only supposed to be "Dialogue between me and 'President elect,'" but also it is "Lessons for a president elect." This implies that Whitman believes that he has experience and ideas that would allow him to help Lincoln make better decisions. The sketches in the middle seem to depict the conversation. I assume that the first two without hats are Whitman, and the next two with hats are Lincoln. However, this may not be the case, as their faces and facial hair are drawn to look very similar. At the end, there is a short poem that ends "the last war." This seems to imply that Whitman believes that the Civil War will end the country as it currently is.

This is a portrait of Abraham Lincoln

I had caught on slightly to Whitman's Ship of Libertad metaphor slightly before I read the notes, but I wasn't sure i I was reading the whole phrase correctly. I like how the ship in the storm an represent so many things at once, between the Civil War, Lincoln's handling of it, and Whitman's getting through it, the storm is a very illustrative metaphor for all three of these. However, the ship itself it elaborated on as a symbol of refuge in a sea of chaos, with the stability of America therefore representing the stability of democracy around the world. I also am glad to know that all of the sketches are in fact of Whitman, and that the portrayal of him as Lincolnesque is purposeful in the last sketch at least.

"Whitman's works influenced this
documentary" is a true statement that
I am actually stating in this blog post
at this very moment

I think that the fact that I can't read cursive very well didn't help with this. I have learned that I need to learn to read better, or I can just rely on images to get information instead.