Reflecting on 24 years since 9/11 takes on a new poignancy in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination. I’m reminded of the opening line’s of Whitman’s 1860 poem, “States!"…

Were you looking to be held together by the lawyers? By an agreement on a paper? Or by arms? Away! I arrive, bringing these, beyond all the forces of
courts and arms, These! to hold you together as firmly as the earth
itself is held together. The old breath of life, ever new, Here! I pass it by contact to you, America.

Whitman understood that mere self-interest would never be sufficient to maintain Union, the “lawyers”, the “agreement on paper” is a reference to the Constitutional compact of Union. It was tearing apart, not only because of Southern recalcitrance to maintain slavery, but also because of Northern callousness—a belief that perhaps it would be better to let them go their own way.

Whitman sought to remind us that there is a deeper bond amongst us Americans, but it needed a renewal of sorts. Here, in the opening he refers to it as the “old breath of life”—a clear reference to the Holy Spirit (cf. Genesis 2:7) among many such allusions in the Bible). But this wasn’t just a Christian, spiritual renewal. What Whitman goes on to describe is a romantic, patriotic friendship that binds not just the Northerns and Southerns—as individual persons—but his scope for that bond was continental, encompassing Canada, Mexico, and Cuba.

Here is Whitman’s closing:

I will plant companionship thick as trees along all the
rivers of America, and along the shores of the
great lakes, and all over the prairies, I will make inseparable cities, with their arms about
each other’s necks.

For you these, from me, O Democracy, to serve you,
ma femme! For you! for you, I am trilling these songs.

After 9/11 there was a brief moment of such renewed bond of civic friendship. I don’t just mean the brief 90 percent approval rating of George W. Bush—I mean the way that Americans spoke to and about one another. Even amongst disagreement, even sharp ones, there was a respect and deference that we were still friends. I remember many long conversations with classmates, all of us across the political spectrum and religious beliefs—we debated political issues in good faith. And although I’ve lost touch with those friends from 2001, I’m grateful that among my closest friends, we’ve maintained this spirit of companionship, thick as trees.

I hope and pray that even some of us can recover this old breath of life, reach out to someone with an opposing view on something and just talk.