Whoever degrades another degrades me,
And whatever is done or said returns at last to me . . .
I speak the pass-word primeval, I give the sign of democracy,
By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their
….counterpart of on the same terms. . . .

For the great Idea, the idea of perfect and free individuals,
For that, the bard walks in advance, leader of leaders,
The attitude of him cheers up slaves and horrified foreign despots . . .

Without extinction is Liberty, without retrograde is Equality,
They live in the feelings of . . . men and . . . women.

— Walt Whitman, from Song of Myself and Beyond Blue Ontario’s Shore