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Home  »  Prose Works  »  1. Dough-Face Song

Walt Whitman (1819–1892). Prose Works. 1892.

IV. Pieces in Early Youth

1. Dough-Face Song

  • —Like dough; soft; yielding to pressure; pale.—Webster’s Dictionary.
  •  

  • WE are all docile dough-faces,
  • They knead us with the fist,
  • They, the dashing southern lords,
  • We labor as they list;
  • For them we speak—or hold our tongues,
  • For them we turn and twist.
  • We join them in their howl against
  • Free soil and “abolition,”
  • That firebrand—that assassin knife—
  • Which risk our land’s condition,
  • And leave no peace of life to any
  • Dough-faced politician.
  • To put down “agitation,” now,
  • We think the most judicious;
  • To damn all “northern fanatics,”
  • Those “traitors” black and vicious;
  • The “reg’lar party usages”
  • For us, and no “new issues.”
  • Things have come to a pretty pass,
  • When a trifle small as this,
  • Moving and bartering nigger slaves,
  • Can open an abyss,
  • With jaws a-gape for “the two great parties;”
  • A pretty thought, I wis!
  • Principle—freedom!—fiddlesticks!
  • We know not where they ’re found.
  • Rights of the masses—progress!—bah!
  • Words that tickle and sound;
  • But claiming to rule o’er “practical men”
  • Is very different ground.
  • Beyond all such we know a term
  • Charming to ears and eyes,
  • With it we’ll stab young Freedom,
  • And do it in disguise;
  • Speak soft, ye wily dough-faces—
  • That term is “compromise.”
  • And what if children, growing up,
  • In future seasons read
  • The thing we do? and heart and tongue
  • Accurse us for the deed?
  • The future cannot touch us;
  • The present gain we heed.
  • Then, all together, dough-faces!
  • Let’s stop the exciting clatter,
  • And pacify slave-breeding wrath
  • By yielding all the matter;
  • For otherwise, as sure as guns,
  • The Union it will shatter.
  • Besides, to tell the honest truth
  • (For us an innovation,)
  • Keeping in with the slave power
  • Is our personal salvation;
  • We ’ve very little to expect
  • From t’ other part of the nation.
  • Besides it’s plain at Washington
  • Who likeliest wins the race,
  • What earthly chance has “free soil”
  • For any good fat place?
  • While many a daw has feather’d his nest,
  • By his creamy and meek dough-face.
  • Take heart, then, sweet companions,
  • Be steady, Scripture Dick!
  • Webster, Cooper, Walker,
  • To your allegiance stick!
  • With Brooks, and Briggs and Phœnix,
  • Stand up through thin and thick!
  • We do not ask a bold brave front;
  • We never try that game;
  • ’Twould bring the storm upon our heads,
  • A huge mad storm of shame;
  • Evade it, brothers—“compromise”
  • Will answer just the same.
  • PAUMANOK.