Do it for Walt Whitman

Reading this action diary by DemHillStaffer brought to mind Walt Whitman's writings from Washington during the Civil War.  He was kind of like a blogger, writing dispatches to the Brooklyn Eagle and New York Times and spending long hours comforting the wounded in military hospitals (writing letters, bringing candy) and observing debate in Congress.

So in the spirit of engagement with the day-to-day goings on in the People's House:

...This is the last day of the 37th Congress, the body during whose existence (1861, '62, '63) the most important, confusing and abnormal events in American history (shall I not say in the history of the world?) have happened.  The 37th Congress, as I have watched their debates (wrangles, propositions, personal presences, physiognomies) in their magnificent skylighted halls; [have] gone night and day, sat, seen, listened -- sometimes literally doubting for a moment my own eyes and ears.

I have learned many new things.  These then are the men who do as they do -- in the midst of the greatest historic chaos and gigantic tussle of the greatest of ages. Look at the little mannikins, shrewd, gabby, dressed in black, hopping about, making motions, amendments. It is very curious. Last night I have gone to the gallery to look at them down there, flooded with light stronger than sunshine, in the most magnificent and best proportioned rooms in the world.

What events are about them and all of us!  Whither are we drifting?  Who knows? It seems as if these electric and terrible days were enough to put life in a paving stone -- as if these must needs form our representative men that have to do with them; [give them] faces of grandeur, actions of awe, vestments of majesty.

-- Washington, February 16, 1863

                                   

I agree with others who say a "This Week in Congress" would make for an excellent weekly diary. I think Walt would agree -- so please go recommend that diary and don't let it fade away!