In his Leaves of Grass (1855), Walt Whitman identified the greatness of America with equality and lack of deference.
“The genius of the United States is not best or most in its executives or legislatures, not in its ambassadors or authors or colleges or churches or parlours, nor even in its newspapers and inventors. But always most in the common people. The air they have of persons who never knew how it felt to stand in the presence of superiors. The terrible significance of their elections. The President’s taking off his hat to them, not they to him”
