July, 1863. The American Civil War rages as two old friends meet in the stillness beside a pond in the woods outside Washington, D.C. Because these men are Walt Whitman and Ralph Waldo Emerson they discuss their doubts with a particular passion. Democracy is a challenging and eloquent examination of human nature and the nature of war.
“But—the song is everything! The joyful noise we make about beauty and about Death is everything! It’s what we are and all that we can ever be in this great nation!”