Augustine Joseph Hickey Duganne

Augustine Joseph Hickey Duganne (1823–1884) was a Civil War era American poet, playwright, and dime novelist. He is the author of Camps and Prison (1865), a vivid account of his Civil War experiences as a Union officer.

"Pleasure which must be enjoyed at the expense of another's pain, can never be enjoyed by a worthy mind. Pleasure's couch is virtue's grave."

Duganne's lyrics were published in a number of labor papers in the 1840s. He kept the notion that the poet must write for and in the interests of the working class, his mission is clear in the poem, "The Song of Toil". In 1897, the Birmingham Labor Advocate published an edited version of his soulful poem, "Keep It Before the People." The poem exalts the strength, freedom, and natural equality of all humankind, and concludes with the rallying cry: Keep it before the people:/ That the laborer claims his need:/ The right of soil,/ And the right of toil,/ From spur and bridle freed;/ The right to bear,/ And the right to share,/ With you and me, my brother!/ What is given,/ By God from heaven,/

To one as well as another!