When Walt Whitman says the following, the remark is intended to be taken critically:
I was asking for something specific and perfect for my city,
Whereupon lo! upsprang the aboriginal name. [Mannahatta]
Without this opening verse, the rest of the poem must be interpreted as flattering of “the people”– pom pom chearleading, telling “the people” how great and wonderful they are. “The people”, supposedly, or somehow or other, being everyone but the aboriginals.
It is wonderful how the “First People” (the aboriginals) figure in, only in, the “First Verse”, and never again. (Except they do figure in, in all the other verses, unto the last phrase of the final verse: my city.)
Walt would have understood a brotherhood of man, fraternity, to include the aboriginals. That would be the only way he could have or would have understood “democracy”.
Spam of Human Affection 
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