Yet his monument is built up by the price of human blood, and the traders in the bodies and souls of men shout We have Washington toour father. Alas! This is a primary source reading analysis of Frederick Douglass' famous speech. One is struck with the difference between the attitude of the American church towards the anti-slavery movement, and that occupied by the churches in England towards a similar movement in that country. You could instruct me in regard to them. I remember, also, that, as a people, Americans are remarkably familiar with all facts which make in their own favor. The fact is, ladies and gentlemen, the distance between this platform and the slave plantation, from which I escaped, is considerable and the difficulties to be overcome in getting from the latter to the former, are by no means slight. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. VIDEO: Frederick Douglass' descendants deliver his 'Fourth of July' speech. They inhabit all our Southern States. While I do not intend to argue this question on the present occasion, let me ask, if it be not somewhat singular that, if the Constitution were intended to be, by its framers and adopters, a slave-holding instrument, why neither slavery, slaveholding, nor slave can anywhere be found in it. They, however, gradually flow back to the same old channel, and flow on as serenely as ever. The fiat of the Almighty, Let there be Light, has not yet spent its force. Take the American slave-trade, which, we are told by the papers, is especially prosperous just now. Prayers are made, hymns are sung, and sermons are preached in honor of this day; while the quick martial tramp of a great and multitudinous nation, echoed back by all the hills, valleys and mountains of a vast continent, bespeak the occasion one of thrilling and universal interest a nations jubilee. Frederick Douglass: (07:35) It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. Nobody doubts it. 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? You discourse eloquently on the dignity of labor; yet, you sustain a system which, in its very essence, casts a stigma upon labor. All Rights Reserved. I was born amid such sights and scenes. Africa must rise and put on her yet unwoven garment. The point from which I am compelled to view them is not, certainly, the most favorable; and yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration. During Frederick Douglass: (06:44) The slaveholders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. Juneteenth Reading List: 10 Books To Learn More About Black Independence Day, Your email will be shared with newsone.com and subject to its, The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro address before an audience, at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York, on July 5, 1852, he was issuing , a scathing indictment of American hypocrisy, Washington Post columnist Courtland Milloy, . Senator Berrien tell us that the Constitution is the fundamental law, that which controls all others. Frederick Douglass: (05:02) The Sharps, the Clarksons, the Wilberforces, the Buxtons, and Burchells and the Knibbs, were alike famous for their piety, and for their philanthropy. Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) was a social reformer and advocate, abolitionist, orator, writer, minister, and statesman. This home government, you know, although a considerable distance from your home, did, in the exercise of its parental prerogatives, impose upon its colonial children, such restraints, burdens and limitations, as, in its mature judgment, it deemed wise, right and proper. It is a fact, that whatever makes for the wealth or for the reputation of Americans, and can be had cheap! The time for such argument is past. 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. If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. There are exceptions, and I thank God that there are. be warned! Morel is right that the 1876 speech by Frederick Douglass is remarkable and masterful. 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. Frederick Douglass: (03:37) A John Knox would be seen at every church door, and heard from every pulpit, and Fillmore would have no more quarter than was shown by Knox, to the beautiful, but treacherous queen Mary of Scotland. Frederick Douglass thought that such rationalizations were crap, and he had the right to think so. Born to an enslaved family in 1818, Frederick Douglass never knew his actual birthday, a fact not uncommon for those enslaved. They felt themselves the victims of grievous wrongs, wholly incurable in their colonial capacity. Heavy billows, like mountains in the distance, disclose to the leeward huge forms of flinty rocks! WebFrederick Douglass, July 5, 1852 INTRODUCTION (Exordium) 1. 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. Frederick Douglass: (08:30) The fate of many a slave has depended upon the turn of a single card; and many a child has been snatched from the arms of its mother by bargains arranged in a state of brutal drunkenness. What to the Slave is the 4th of July? Speech Transcript by Frederick Douglass, Congressional Testimony & Hearing Transcripts. Their opposition to the then dangerous thought was earnest and powerful; but, amid all their terror and affrighted vociferations against it, the alarming and revolutionary idea moved on, and the country with it. May he not hope that high lessons of wisdom, of justice and of truth, will yet give direction to her destiny? Translated on-screen subtitles for videos. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery. whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe. The blessings in which you this day rejoice are not enjoyed in common. But I fancy I hear some one of my audience say, it is just in this circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind. I do not remember ever to have appeared as a speaker before any assembly more shrinkingly, nor with greater distrust of my ability, than I do this day. Where these go, may also go the merciless slave-hunter. 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. 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. Now, take the Constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. To all inspiring motives, to noble deeds which can be gained from the past, we are welcome. I lived on Philpot Street, Fells Point, Baltimore, and have watched from the wharves, the slave ships in the Basin, anchored from the shore, with their cargoes of human flesh, waiting for favorable winds to waft them down the Chesapeake. Yet this is but a glance at the American slave-trade, as it exists, at this moment, in the ruling part of the United States. That he is the rightful owner of his own body? With little experience and with less learning, I have been able to throw my thoughts hastily and imperfectly together; and By an act of the American Congress, not yet two years old, slavery has been nationalized in its most horrible and revolting form. I have better employments for my time and strength than such arguments would imply. When a sufficient number have been collected here, a ship is chartered, for the purpose of conveying the forlorn crew to Mobile, or to New Orleans. To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding. My business, if I have any here today, is with the present. He who will, intelligently, lay down his life for his country, is a man whom it is not in human nature to despise. Make your content more accessible to people with disabilities. In their admiration of liberty, they lost sight of all other interests. What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible being? There are seventy-two crimes in the State of Virginia, which, if committed by a black man, (no matter how ignorant he be), subject him to the punishment of death; while only two of the same crimes will subject a white man to the like punishment. The duty to extirpate and destroy it, is admitted even by our DOCTORS OF DIVINITY. You boast of your love of liberty, your superior civilization, and your pure Christianity, while the whole political power of the nation (as embodied in the two great political parties), is solemnly pledged to support and perpetuate the enslavement of three millions of your countrymen. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? Under these, and innumerable other disadvantages, your fathers declared for liberty and independence and triumphed. The Celestial Empire, the mystery of ages, is being solved. The subject has been handled with masterly power by Lysander Spooner, Esq., by William Goodell, by Samuel E. Sewall, Esq., and last, though not least, by Gerritt Smith, Esq. I am not included within the pales of this glorious anniversary. You were under the British Crown. welcome anything! On the other hand it will be found to contain principles and purposes, entirely hostile to the existence of slavery. Under Title 17 U.S.C. In several states, this trade is a chief source of wealth. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? At some future period I will gladly avail myself of an opportunity to give this subject a full and fair discussion. 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. If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. It is neither. As with rivers so with nations. Everybody can say it; the dastard, not less than the noble brave, can flippantly discant on the tyranny of England towards the American Colonies. They strip the love of God of its beauty, and leave the throng of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form. Frederick Douglass: (01:08) I will show you a man-drover. There is blasphemy in the thought. When the dogs in your street, 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, then I will argue with you that the slave is a man. Many of its most eloquent Divines. Of this sort of change they are always strongly in favor. It saps the foundation of religion; it makes your name a hissing, and a bye-word to a mocking earth. He further says, the Constitution, in its words, is plain and intelligible, and is meant for the home-bred, unsophisticated understandings of our fellow-citizens. To arrest it, to put an end to it, this nation keeps a squadron, at immense cost, on the coast of Africa. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. That people contented themselves under the shadow of Abrahams great name, while they repudiated the deeds which made his name great. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation Babylon, whose crimes towering up to heaven with thrown down by the breadth of the almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin. The manhood of the slave is conceded. Douglass gave this speech to a group of abolitionists 168 years ago. On July 5, 1852, eminent African American abolitionist Frederick Douglass delivered a brilliant speech to nearly six hundred people filling Rochester, New Yorks Corinthian Hall, as organized by the Rochester Ladies Anti-Slavery Sewing Society. Fair use is permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Youmay rejoice,Imust mourn. You hurl your anathemas at the crowned headed tyrants of Russia and Austria, and pride yourselves on your Democratic institutions, while you yourselves consent to be the meretoolsand body-guardsof the tyrants of Virginia and Carolina. There were then no means of concert and combination, such as exist now. Descendants of Frederick Douglass read excerpts from one of his most famous speeches: What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? Web"The Lessons of the Hour" Speech by Frederick Douglass, January 9, 1894 Friends and Fellow Citizens : No man should come before an audience like the one by whose presence I am now honored, without a noble object and a fixed and earnest purpose. All Rights Reserved. And while slavery has long been abolished and outlawed, the sentiment behind the address still applies in many unfortunate ways when it comes to the overall Black experience in America. They showed forbearance; but that they knew its limits. Knowledge was then confined and enjoyed by the privileged few, and the multitude walked on in mental darkness. Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? They form the staple of your national poetry and eloquence. They have taught that man may, properly, be a slave; that the relation of master and slave is ordained of God; that to send back an escaped bondman to his master is clearly the duty of all the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ; and this horrible blasphemy is palmed off upon the world for Christianity. With little experience and with less learning, I have been able to throw my thoughts hastily and imperfectly together; and trusting to your patient and generous indulgence, I will proceed to lay them before you. Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation? The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced. Travel through South America. Our eyes are met with demonstrations of joyous enthusiasm. There I see the tenderest ties ruthlessly broken, to gratify the lust, caprice and rapacity of the buyers and sellers of men. It is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. Fellow-citizens; above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! How circumspect, exact and proportionate were all their movements! What? Of this fundamental work, this day is the anniversary. The feeling of the nation must be quickened. It esteems sacrifice above mercy; psalm-singing above right doing; solemn meetings above practical righteousness. It carries your minds back to the day, and to the act of your great deliverance; and to the signs, and to the wonders, associated with that act, and that day. But I fancy, I hear some of my audience say it is just in this circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression upon the public mind. In speaking of the American church, however, let it be distinctly understood that I mean the great mass of the religious organizations of our land. 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? These ministers make religion a cold and flinty-hearted thing, having neither principles of right action, nor bowels of compassion. Yea! They were statesmen, patriots and heroes, and for the good they did, and the principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory. They convert the very name of religion into an engine of tyranny, and barbarous cruelty, and serve to confirm more infidels, in this age, than all the infidel writings of Thomas Paine, Voltaire, and Bolingbroke, put together, have done! I will not. Mark the sad procession, as it moves wearily along, and the inhuman wretch who drives them. Were the nation older, the patriots heart might be sadder, and the reformers brow heavier. There is consolation in the thought that America is young. This is the inevitable conclusion, and from it there is no escape. 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Let it be thundered around the world, that, in tyrant-killing, king-hating, people-loving, democratic, Christian America, the seats of justice are filled with judges, who hold their offices under an open and palpablebribe, and are bound, in deciding in the case of a mans liberty,hear only his accusers! WebOn December 3, 1860, Frederick Douglass and a group of fellow abolitionists met at the Tremont Temple Baptist Church in Boston for a discussion centered around the following Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has I will not equivocate. or is it in the temple? 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, 1852, he was issuing a scathing indictment of American hypocrisy, Washington Post columnist Courtland Milloy reminded readers. I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the ring-bolt to the chain of your nations destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. Extend your content reach and maximize your engagement rates. They are plain, common-sense rules, such as you and I, and all of us, can understand and apply, without having passed years in the study of law. Now, there are certain rules of interpretation, for the proper understanding of all legal instruments. Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. 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. Cling to this day cling to it, and to its principles, with the grasp of a storm-tossed mariner to a spar at midnight. I think that, in whatever else I may be deficient, I have You are all on fire at the mention of liberty for France or for Ireland; but are as cold as an iceberg at the thought of liberty for the enslaved of America. Frederick Douglass: (00:26) Mark them! That year will come, and freedoms reign. Ethiopia shall stretch out her hand unto God. In the fervent aspirations of William Lloyd Garrison, I say, and let every heart join in saying it: Th oppressd shall vilely bend the knee. But a still more inhuman, disgraceful, and scandalous state of things remains to be presented. They perambulate the country, and crowd the highways of the nation, with droves of human stock. Wind, steam, and lightning are its chartered agents. Calculate how much it costs to transcribe, caption, or subtitle your content. You may rejoice, I must mourn.. 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. Some of these have had wives and children, dependent on them for bread; but of this, no account was made. Fromwhat quarter, I beg to know, has proceeded a fire so deadly upon our ranks, during the last two years, as from the Northern pulpit? The iron shoe, and crippled foot of China must be seen, in contrast with nature.

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