Are you indeed for Liberty?

Are you a man who would assume a place to teach here, or lead here, or be a poet here?

The place is august—the terms obdurate.

W/ho would assume to reach here, may well prepare himself, body and mind,

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Who are you, indeed, who would talk or sing in America?

Have you studied out My Land, its idioms and men?

Have you learned the physiology, phrenology, politics, geography, pride, freedom, friendship, of my land? its substratums and objects?

Have you considered the organic compact of the first day of the first year of the independence of The States, signed by the Commissioners, ratified  by the States and read by Washington at the head of the army?

Have you possessed yourself of the Federal Constitution?

Do you acknowledge Liberty with audible and absolute acknowledgement, and set slavery at nought for life and death?

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Are you of the whole people?

 

Walt Whitman