I have detained my audience entirely too long already. But, with that blindness which seems to be the unvarying characteristic of tyrants, since Pharaoh and his hosts were drowned in the Red Sea, the British Government persisted in the exactions complained of. In prosecuting the anti-slavery enterprise, we have been asked to spare the church, to spare the ministry; buthow, we ask, could such a thing be done? Frederick Douglass He rose from the shackles of slavery to become an author, newspaper publisher, and respected abolitionist. The hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed and its crimes against God and man must be denounced. Everybody can say it; the dastard, not less than the noble brave, can flippantly discant on the tyranny of England towards the American Colonies. That is a branch of knowledge in which you feel, perhaps, a much deeper interest than your speaker. While drawing encouragement from the Declaration of Independence, the great principles it contains, and the genius of American Institutions, my spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age. The slaveholders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. It is called (in contradistinction to the foreign slave-trade) the internal slave trade. It is, probably, called so, too, in order to divert from it the horror with which the foreign slave-trade is contemplated. As with rivers so with nations. There is blasphemy in the thought. That point is conceded already. I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people! Frederick Douglass, circa 1879. Difference between Rittenhouse and McMichael-Bryan verdicts? Frederick Douglass delivered his famous speech What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? in 1852, drawing parallels between the Revolutionary War and the fight to abolish slavery. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. See, too, that girl of thirteen, weeping, yes! Walled cities and empires have become unfashionable. welcome atheism! They felt themselves the victims of grievous wrongs, wholly incurable in their colonial capacity. It is not the gentle shower, but thunder. Read its preamble, consider its purposes. Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who He mentions the fact to show that slavery is in no danger. A speech given at Rochester, New York, July 5, 1852 . Make your content more accessible to people with disabilities. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.. Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood and stained with pollution is wrong? The papers and placards say, that I am to deliver a 4th [of] July oration. Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe. The testimony of Senator Breese, Lewis Cass, and many others that might be named, who are everywhere esteemed as sound lawyers, so regard the constitution. In a very telling sign, the fateful words of Frederick Douglass from a speech he delivered 170 years ago still resonate very much in 2022 as Black people in America continue the fight for the same kind of equality that the legendary abolitionist was demanding back in the mid-19th century. WebThe Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro by Frederick Douglass. Like our content? Need I tell you that the Jews are not the only people who built the tombs of the prophets, and garnished the sepulchres of the righteous? Is it not astonishing that, while we are ploughing, planting and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, silver and gold; that, while we are reading, writing and cyphering, acting as clerks, merchants and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators and teachers; that, while we are engaged in all manner of enterprises common to other men, digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hill-side, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives and children, and, above all, confessing and worshipping the Christians God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave, we are called upon to prove that we are men! In several states, this trade is a chief source of wealth. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. They petitioned and remonstrated; they did so in a decorous, respectful, and loyal manner. The slave holders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. As noted here, that banquet was attended by prominent African-American professional men in celebration of the twenty-first anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation.After the toast provided by former Senator Blanche K. Bruce, With them, justice, liberty and humanity were final; not slavery and oppression. They succeeded; and to-day you reap the fruits of their success. Ever ready to drink, to treat, and to gamble. Many of its most eloquent Divines. The eye of the reformer is met with angry flashes, portending disastrous times; but his heart may well beat lighter at the thought that America is young, and that she is still in the impressible stage of her existence. That year will come, and freedoms reign. Space is comparatively annihilated. How circumspect, exact and proportionate were all their movements! They were not the men to look back. If any man in this assembly thinks differently from me in this matter, and feels able to disprove my statements, I will gladly confront him at any suitable time and place he may select. In a final celebratory post for Black History Month 2023, it is worth returning to the 1883 Douglass Banquet. You discourse eloquently on the dignity of labor; yet, you sustain a system which, in its very essence, casts a stigma upon labor. This, however, did not answer the purpose. Its future might be shrouded in gloom, and the hope of its prophets go out in sorrow. And am I therefore called upon to bring our humble offering to the national alter and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us? R. R. Raymond) on the platform, are shining examples; and let me say further, that upon these men lies the duty to inspire our ranks with high religious faith and zeal, and to cheer us on in the great mission of the slaves redemption from his chains. Speech-to-Text API for pre-recorded audio, powered by the worlds leading speech recognition engine. They are food for the cotton-field, and the deadly sugar-mill. WebCelebrating 200 years of Frederick Douglass. At a time like this, scorching irony not convincing argument is needed. Celebrating Frederick Douglass through Transcription a horrible reptile is coiled up in your nations bosom; the venomous creature is nursing at the tender breast of your youthful republic;for the love of God, tear away, and fling from you the hideous monster, andlet the weight of twenty millions crush and destroy it forever! there is no matter in respect to which, the people of the North have allowed themselves to be so ruinously imposed upon, as that of the pro-slavery character of the Constitution. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the lame man leap as an hart.. To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding. Their statesmanship looked beyond the passing moment, and stretched away in strength into the distant future. It has made itself the bulwark of American slavery, and the shield of American slave-hunters. From the round top of your ship of state, dark and threatening clouds may be seen. your republican politics, not less than your republican religion, are flagrantly inconsistent. The manhood of the slave is conceded. WebA speech celebrating both Lincoln and African Americans freedom wrought by Lincoln. There are exceptions, and I thank God that there are. Heat and sorrow have nearly consumed their strength; suddenly you hear a quick snap, like the discharge of a rifle; the fetters clank, and the chain rattles simultaneously; your ears are saluted with a scream, that seems to have torn its way to the center of your soul! What would be thought of an instrument, drawn up, legally drawn up, for the purpose of entitling the city of Rochester to a track of land, in which no mention of land was made? That people contented themselves under the shadow of Abrahams great name, while they repudiated the deeds which made his name great. A feeling has crept over me, quite unfavorable to the exercise of my limited powers of speech. I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies. Without this right, the liberty of an American citizen would be as insecure as that of a Frenchman. The drove moves tardily. Frederick Douglass, What to the Slave Is the Fourth The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. Oh! Three score years and ten is the allotted time for individual men; but nations number their years by thousands. Is a matter, the set with great difficulty involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard to understand? Speech Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to those questions. Frederick Douglass thought that such rationalizations were crap, and he had the right to think so. Would you persuade more and rebuke less? These people were called Tories in the days of your fathers; and the appellation, probably, conveyed the same idea that is meant by a more modern, though a somewhat less euphonious term, which we often find in our papers, applied to some of our old politicians. Hear his savage yells and his blood-chilling oaths, as he hurries on his affrighted captives! or is it in the temple? YOUR HANDS ARE FULL OF BLOOD; cease to do evil, learn to do well; seek judgment; relieve the oppressed; judge for the fatherless; plead for the widow., The American church is guilty, when viewed in connection with what it is doing to uphold slavery; but it is superlatively guilty when viewed in connection with its ability to abolish slavery. And the lame man leap as an heart, but such is not the case. Speech They who did so were accounted in their day, plotters of mischief, agitators and rebels, dangerous men. Tell me citizens, WHERE, under the sun, you can witness a spectacle more fiendish and shocking. You profess to believe that, of one blood, God made all nations of men to dwell on the face of all the earth, and hath commanded all men, everywhere to love one another; yet you notoriously hate, (and glory in your hatred), all men whose skins are not colored like your own. You may rejoice. The message of Frederick Douglasss 1852 speech on the contradiction of Americas just ideals and unjust realities endures. The minister of American justice is bound by the law to hear butoneside; andthatside, is the side of the oppressor. speech Descendants of Frederick Douglass read excerpts from one of his most famous speeches: What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slaves point of view. Frederick Douglass: (08:30) Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation? There, the church, true to its mission of ameliorating, elevating, and improving the condition of mankind, came forward promptly, bound up the wounds of the West Indian slave, and restored him to his liberty. In the language of Isaiah, the American church might be well addressed, Bring no more vain ablations; incense is an abomination unto me: the new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity even the solemn meeting. When the dogs in your streets, when the fowls of the air, when the cattle on your hills, when the fish of the sea, and the reptiles that crawl, shall be unable to distinguish the slave from a brute, thenwill I argue with you that the slave is a man! You declare, before the world, and are understood by the world to declare, that you hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal; and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; and that, among these are, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and yet, you hold securely, in a bondage which, according to your own Thomas Jefferson, is worse than ages of that which your fathers rose in rebellion to oppose, aseventh partof the inhabitants of your country. What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible being? From Boston to London is now a holiday excursion. But a change has now come over the affairs of mankind. This celebration also marks the beginning of another year of your national life; and reminds you that the Republic of America is now 76 years old. The time for such argument is passed. Frederick Douglass: (05:02) What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? The propriety of the nation must be startled. Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival. This truth is not a doubtful one. Frederick Douglass: (01:08) Fellow citizens, above your national tumultuous joy I hear the mournful wail of millions whose chains heavy and grievous yesterday are today rendered more intolerable by the jubilant shouts that reach them. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? I will not excuse. in preference to the gospel,as preached by those Divines! It fetters your progress; it is the enemy of improvement, the deadly foe of education; it fosters pride; it breeds insolence; it promotes vice; it shelters crime; it is a curse to the earth that supports it; and yet, you cling to it, as if it were the sheet anchor of all your hopes. They strip the love of God of its beauty, and leave the throng of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form. Frederick Douglass: (02:13) I take this law to be one of the grossest infringements of Christian Liberty, and, if the churches and ministers of our country were not stupidly blind, or most wickedly indifferent, they, too, would so regard it. In their admiration of liberty, they lost sight of all other interests. It esteems sacrifice above mercy; psalm-singing above right doing; solemn meetings above practical righteousness. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery. They, that can, may. They hate all changes, but silver, gold and copper change! The anti-slavery movementtherewas not an anti-church movement, for the reason that the church took its full share in prosecuting that movement: and the anti-slavery movement in this country will cease to be an anti-church movement, when the church of this country shall assume a favorable, instead of a hostile position towards that movement. From the Potomac to the Delaware was a journey of many days. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. But it is answered in reply to all this, that precisely what I have now denounced is, in fact, guaranteed and sanctioned by the Constitution of the United States; that the right to hold and to hunt slaves is a part of that Constitution framed by the illustrious Fathers of this Republic. When Douglass delivered his famous The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro address before an audience at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York, on July 5, That, which is inhuman cannot be divine. Its quite a remarkable speech as Douglass in a way reenacts his own journey in appreciation for the work that Lincoln did, not just for blacks, but for whites in this country. be warned! In glaring violation of justice, in shameless disregard of the forms of administering law, in cunning arrangement to entrap the defenseless, and in diabolical intent, this Fugitive Slave Law stands alone in the annals of tyrannical legislation. What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? - Wikipedia that gash on her shoulder tells her to move on. Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice embodied in that Declaration of Independence extended to us? Oh, had I, the ability, and could I reach the nations ear, I would today pour out a fiery steam of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. What, then, remains to be argued? Is it that slavery is not divine, that God did not establish it, that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? The manhood of the slave is conceded. The flesh-mongers gather up their victims by dozens, and drive them, chained, to the general depot at Baltimore. Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetual remembrance. I scout the idea that the question of the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of slavery is not a question for the people. The existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretence, and your Christianity as a lie. The Celestial Empire, the mystery of ages, is being solved. speech was delivered on July 5, 1852 as an address to the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society in Rochester, New York. Before you read the speech you can follow these links to learn more about Douglasss life and the evolution of his thought in this period. Short bio of Frederick Douglass The Frederick Douglass Papers Library of Congress The din of business, too, is hushed. Noble men may be found, scattered all over these Northern States, of whom Henry Ward Beecher of Brooklyn, Samuel J. I do not hesitate to declare with all my soul that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July. speech You could instruct me in regard to them. What to the Slave is the 4th of July? Speech Transcript by Frederick Douglass, Congressional Testimony & Hearing Transcripts. Go search where you will. Americans! To him, your celebration is a sham, your boasted Liberty, an unholy license, your national greatness, swelling vanity. In order to put an end to it, some of these last have consented that their colored brethren (nominally free) should leave this country, and establish themselves on the western coast of Africa! The crack you heard, was the sound of the slave-whip; the scream you heard, was from the woman you saw with the babe. Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) was a social reformer and advocate, abolitionist, orator, writer, minister, and statesman. I repeat, I am glad this is so. But I admit, where all is plain, there is nothing to be argued. Take the American slave-trade, which, we are told by the papers, is especially prosperous just now. Speech Transcript Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has I doubt if there be another nation on the globe, having the brass and the baseness to put such a law on the statute-book. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost. I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. I shall see, this day, and its popular characteristics, from the slaves point of view. America is false to the past, false to the present and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Extend your content reach and maximize your engagement rates. The anguish of my boyish heart was intense; and I was often consoled, when speaking to my mistress in the morning, to hear her say that the custom was very wicked; that she hated to hear the rattle of the chains, and the heart-rending cries. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, lowering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin! Douglass gave this speech to a group of abolitionists 168 years ago. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of Liberty and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems were inhuman mockery in sacrilegious irony. Who can reason on such a proposition? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting.