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Emerson and Whitman are two of the most important thinkers in American history. They not only represent the first person to put the United States on the international intellectual map and the first artist to achieve a uniquely American style, respectively. Equally important is the fact that they wrote during one of the most significant political moments in American history. The most productive years of the careers of each encompass the years leading up to, during, and immediately after the Civil War. Hence understanding their writings in that context should help us to gain greater leverage on our own intellectual history and inheritance. Furthermore, both writers are woefully understudied by political theorists, and they are both frequently misunderstood. In this paper, I will suggest several corrections to our understanding of the writings of Whitman and Emerson and the connections between them. I will focus on the tensions in each between the rights of individuals and democracy, as well as on the continuities and discontinuities in each with the political discourses of the times in which they wrote. Towards this end, I use Thomas Carlyle as a foil for moving between them and for highlighting their similarities and differences. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]