Well I found this bit a charming info about Walt Whitman and the Mexican-American war. He was a big supporter of the Mexican-American war and Manifest Destiny. He was a racist as well. I never heard anyone ever mention that but they all let us know he may have been gay thou. Walt had a Quaker background...
whitmanarchive.org
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SNIP...
Whitman enthusiastically supported the wars against Mexico—fought by Texas, 1836–1845, and by the United States, 1845–1848. He believed in North America's manifest destiny to incorporate Texas, Arizona, Santa Fe, Nevada, California, Oregon, Cuba and perhaps the Yucatan; however, he opposed annexing all Mexico, Central America, Venezuela, and Ecuador. These "weak and imbecile powers" needed first "to respect us, and when they are so far civilized and educated . . . it will be time enough to think of annexation"
Snip...
"
What has miserable, inefficient Mexico—with her superstition, her burlesque upon freedom, her actual tyranny by the few over the many—what has she to do with the great mission of peopling the New World with a noble race?
snip... He question the war once he feared the extension of slavery...
Those like Whitman who could not support the extension of slavery founded the Free Soil Party: "Free soil, free speech, free labor and free men." "Free men" included only the "white workingmen . . . mechanics, farmers and operatives";
slaves would not be emancipated; nor could dark-skinned Mexicans be incorporated into the union.
Snip... Gay Whitman appears... I seen this word define as " lovers" it sounds like Sacred Band Thebes Whitman was thinking...
Whitman may have gathered the Spanish word
camarada, which he masculinized and anglicized as camerado. The term comes from the Spanish
cama;
camarada means "someone who studies, eats or lives with another," but literally translates as "bedmate."
La camarada formed the smallest Spanish military unit.
Snip... Old Age... he seem regretful...
In 1864, he confessed that Mexico was
"the only one to whom we have ever really done wrong"
In 1883, he wrote:
"To that composite American identity of the future, Spanish character will supply some of the most needed parts." American identity must include Spanish as well as "our aboriginal or Indian population—the Aztec in the South, and many a tribe in the North and West"
Snip.. a side note... Mexican-American was beginning
Influential American men of letters like Walt Whitman and James Fenimore Cooper saw it as the beginning of a world movement to extend democracy.