May of Syracuse, and my esteemed friend (Rev. "What to the Slave is the 4th of July?" Speech Transcript I hold that every American citizen has a right to form an opinion of the constitution, and to propagate that opinion, and to use all honorable means to make his opinion the prevailing one. They that can, may; I cannot. Frederick Douglass: (09:38) In the solitude of my spirit, I see clouds of dust raised on the highways of the South; I see the bleeding footsteps; I hear the doleful wail of fettered humanity, on the way to the slave markets, where the victims are to be sold like horses, sheep, and swine, knocked off to the highest bidder. But I differ from those who charge this baseness on the framers of the Constitution of the United States. By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. What to the Slave is the 4th of July? Speech Transcript by Frederick Douglass, Congressional Testimony & Hearing Transcripts. "The Lessons of the Hour" Speech by Frederick Douglass It is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. Add English on-screen subtitles for videos. They hate all changes, but silver, gold and copper change! Even Mammon seems to have quitted his grasp on this day. With head, and heart, and hand Ill strive, 8 Times Obama Showed Trump How Presidents Are Supposed To Celebrate The Fourth Of July, Welcome To The Cookout: 10 Lit Movies To Watch During July Fourth Holiday Weekend, 'Dilbert' Comic Creator Calls Black People A 'Hate Group,' Urges Segregation So Whites Can 'Escape', Bernie Mac Show Star Camille Winbush Is Not Ashamed Of Joining OnlyFans, Kyle Rittenhouse Faces 2nd Civil Lawsuit, Continues To Beg For Money From His Supporters, Ben Stein's 'Aunt Jemima' Rant Is A Master Class On White Privilege, Why Did tWitch Kill Himself? From the Potomac to the Delaware was a journey of many days. How can we sing the Lords song in a strange land? I scarcely need say, fellow-citizens, that my opinion of those measures fully accords with that of your fathers. 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. Albert Barnes but uttered what the common sense of every man at all observant of the actual state of the case will receive as truth, when he declared that There is no power out of the church that could sustain slavery an hour, if it were not sustained in it.. They have all been taught in your common schools, narrated at your firesides, unfolded from your pulpits, and thundered from your legislative halls, and are as familiar to you as household words. Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? At some future period I will gladly avail myself of an opportunity to give this subject a full and fair discussion. For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. My spirit wearies of such blasphemy; and how such men can be supported, as the standing types and representatives of Jesus Christ, is a mystery which I leave others to penetrate. Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country. It was, Milloy continued, a critique of a nation that claimed to hold dear the principles of freedom, justice and equality even as it enslaved black people.. How circumspect, exact and proportionate were all their movements! That which is inhuman, cannot be divine! Then, I dare to affirm, notwithstanding all I have said before, your fathers stooped, basely stooped. Friends and citizens, I need not enter further into the causes which led to this anniversary. 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 a child, my soul was often pierced with a sense of its horrors. In the summer of 2020, the U.S. commemorated Independence Day amid nationwide You have already declared it. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The whole scene, as I look back to it, was simple, dignified and sublime. 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. Celebrating Frederick Douglass through Transcription WebA speech celebrating both Lincoln and African Americans freedom wrought by Lincoln. They went so far in their excitement as to pronounce the measures of government unjust, unreasonable, and oppressive, and altogether such as ought not to be quietly submitted to. A worship that can be conducted by persons who refuse to give shelter to the houseless, to give bread to the hungry, clothing to the naked, and who enjoin obedience to a law forbidding these acts of mercy, is a curse, not a blessing to mankind. The ear-piercing fife and the stirring drum unite their accents with the ascending peal of a thousand church bells. Further, if this demand were not complied with, another Scotland would be added to the history of religious liberty, and the stern old Covenanters would be thrown into the shade. Do you mean citizens to mock me by asking me to speak today? On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? The drove moves tardily. 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. 1883 Speech by Frederick Douglass - accessible-archives.com Get a weekly digest of the weeks most important transcripts in your inbox. It is fashionable to do so; but there was a time when to pronounce against England, and in favor of the cause of the colonies, tried mens souls. The accepted time with God and his cause is the ever-living now. 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. Fellow-citizens! Yea! They strip the love of God of its beauty, and leave the throng of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form. Wind, steam, and lightning are its chartered agents. The cause of liberty may be stabbed by the men who glory in the deeds of your fathers. Sign up for NewsOne's email newsletter! We thank you for taking the time to watch this community reading of Frederick Douglasss What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? Source: Blight, David. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. It is not the gentle shower, but thunder. I answer: a day that reveals to him more than all other days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. 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! To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs and to chime in with the popular theme would be treason most sacrilegious and shocking and would make me a reproach before God and the world. Towards the end of 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. WebIn December 1860, the great American orator and former slave Frederick Douglass delivered one of his finest speeches, A Plea for Free Speech in Boston. In it, he boldly declared that liberty is meaningless where the right to utter ones thoughts and With little experience and with less learning, I have been able to throw my thoughts hastily and imperfectly together; and Frederick Douglass: (01:08) Easily integrate Rev using our robust APIs to start building your product quickly. We are called upon to prove that we are men. The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro by Frederick Douglass And it would go hard with that politician who presumed to solicit the votes of the people without inscribing this motto on his banner. 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. Some of these have had wives and children, dependent on them for bread; but of this, no account was made. The simple story of it is that, 76 years ago, the people of this country were British subjects. WebOn January 9, 1894, at Washington, D.C.'s, Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church, Frederick Douglass delivered his "The Lessons of the Hour" speech, which addressed the It is a fact, that whatever makes for the wealth or for the reputation of Americans, and can be had cheap! 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. In a final celebratory post for Black History Month 2023, it is worth returning to the 1883 Douglass Banquet. Would you argue more and denounce less? But, your fathers, who had not adopted the fashionable idea of this day, of the infallibility of government, and the absolute character of its acts, presumed to differ from the home government in respect to the wisdom and the justice of some of those burdens and restraints. 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. Thu 5 Jul 2018 07.00 EDT Last modified on Wed 24 Jul 2019 11.58 EDT. I shall not be charged with slandering Americans, if I say I think the American side of any question may be safely left in American hands. And the conscience of the nation must be roused. Everywhere, in this country, it is safe to speak of this foreign slave-trade, as a most inhuman traffic, opposed alike to the laws of God and of man. 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. All Rights Reserved. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.. Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? And yet not one word shall escape me that any man whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice or who is not at heart, a slaveholder shall not confess to be right and just. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood and stained with pollution is wrong? Noble men may be found, scattered all over these Northern States, of whom Henry Ward Beecher of Brooklyn, Samuel J. No! 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. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, not by me. It makes its pathway over and under the sea, as well as on the earth. Africa must rise and put on her yet unwoven garment. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Citizens, your fathers made good that resolution. Frederick Douglass: (02:13) Walled cities and empires have become unfashionable. 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, . I will not equivocate; I will not excuse; I will use the severest language I can command; and yet not one word shall escape me that any man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a slaveholder, shall not confess to be right and just. 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. On the other hand it will be found to contain principles and purposes, entirely hostile to the existence of slavery. This is esteemed by some as a national trait perhaps a national weakness. Frederick Douglass The most accurate AI-powered transcription on the market. 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. I repeat, I am glad this is so. On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass gave a speech at an Independence Day celebration organized by the Rochester Ladies Anti-Slavery Society. 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? 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. be warned! Though a biting I am not included within the pales of this glorious anniversary. There is not time now to argue the constitutional question at length nor have I the ability to discuss it as it ought to be discussed. What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? - Wikipedia Make your content more accessible to people with disabilities. 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. If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. Our eyes are met with demonstrations of joyous enthusiasm. 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. You can bare your bosom to the storm of British artillery to throw off a threepenny tax on tea; and yet wring the last hard-earned farthing from the grasp of the black laborers of your country. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. Your cause would be much more likely to succeed. 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, 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. Youmay rejoice,Imust mourn. What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible being? I am not that man. The manhood of the slave is conceded. WebOn July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass gave a keynote address at an Independence Day celebration and asked, What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? Douglass was a powerful You discourse eloquently on the dignity of labor; yet, you sustain a system which, in its very essence, casts a stigma upon labor. Is it not astonishing that while we are plowing, planting and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metal of brass, iron, copper, silver, and gold, that while we are reading, writing, and ciphering acting as clerks, merchants, and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators, and teachers that we are engaged in all the enterprises, common to other men, digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific feeding sheep and cattle on the hillside, living, moving, acting, thinking, planting, living in families as husbands, wives, and children, and above all confessing and worshiping the Christian God and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave. Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. Did this law concern the mint, anise, and cumin abridge the right to sing psalms, to partake of the sacrament, or to engage in any of the ceremonies of religion, it would be smitten by the thunder of a thousand pulpits. WebFrederick Douglass, July 5, 1852 INTRODUCTION (Exordium) 1. What was possible for him, he sincerely believed was possible for any man who was willing to work hard. But a change has now come over the affairs of mankind. The slave holders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. How unlike the politicians of an hour! Fellow-citizens; above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! There are illustrations of it near and remote, ancient and modern. He mentions the fact to show that slavery is in no danger. I will use the severest language I can command. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. Frederick Douglass: (03:37) Were the nation older, the patriots heart might be sadder, and the reformers brow heavier. Frederick Douglass, What to the Slave Is the Fourth The Celestial Empire, the mystery of ages, is being solved. They felt themselves the victims of grievous wrongs, wholly incurable in their colonial capacity. Frederick Douglass 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. The sin of which it is guilty is one of omission as well as of commission. Nobody doubts it. 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. I say it with a sad sense of disparity between us. As with rivers so with nations. Washington could not die till he had broken the chains of his slaves. 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. Senator Berrien tell us that the Constitution is the fundamental law, that which controls all others. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Frederick Douglass: (05:02) 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. To me the American slave-trade is a terrible reality. Your fathers have lived, died, and have done their work, and have done much of it well. WebIn the late 1860sat a moment of great hope for the promise of equality under the lawthe famed orator and once-enslaved abolitionist Frederick Douglass took his Our Composite Nation speech on the road to argue for a plural American democracy. Oration by Frederick Douglass, delivered on the occasion of the It has made itself the bulwark of American slavery, and the shield of American slave-hunters. By that most foul and fiendish of all human decrees, the liberty and person of every man are put in peril. The time was when such could be done. Then would my task be light and my burden easy and delightful? Your President, your Secretary of State, ourlords,nobles, and ecclesiastics, enforce, as a duty you owe to your free and glorious country, and to your God, that you do this accursed thing. 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. I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slaves point of view. Industry-leading accurate legal transcription to ensure you dont miss a statement. It saps the foundation of religion; it makes your name a hissing, and a bye-word to a mocking earth. Douglass gave this speech to a group of abolitionists 168 years ago. These men were generally well dressed men, and very captivating in their manners. The style and title of your sovereign people (in which you now glory) was not then born. It is admitted in the fact that Southern statute books are covered with enactments forbidding under severe fines and penalties, the teaching of the slave to read and write. I leave, therefore, the great deeds of your fathers to other gentlemen whose claim to have been regularly descended will be less likely to be disputed than mine! welcome anything! For 186 years this doctrine of national independence has shaken the globeand it remains the most powerful force anywhere in the world today. The far off and almost fabulous Pacific rolls in grandeur at our feet. For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. 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. had I the ability, and could I reach the nations ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. It is, however, a notable fact that, while so much execration is poured out by Americans upon those engaged in the foreign slave-trade, the men engaged in the slave-trade between the states pass without condemnation, and their business is deemed honorable. Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation? I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. They are food for the cotton-field, and the deadly sugar-mill. The minister of American justice is bound by the law to hear butoneside; andthatside, is the side of the oppressor. Your fathers staked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, on the cause of their country. The manhood of the slave is conceded. Who so stolid and selfish, that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nations jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? My subject then, fellow citizens, is American slavery. The madness of this course, we believe, is admitted now, even by England; but we fear the lesson is wholly lost on our present ruler. I will show you a man-drover. WebFrederick Douglass, July 5, 1852 INTRODUCTION (Exordium) 1. Is that a question for Republicans? The task before me is one which requires much previous thought and study for its proper performance. The Fugitive SlaveLawmakes mercy to them a crime; and bribes the judge who tries them. Ex-Vice-President Dallas tells us that the Constitution is an object to which no American mind can be too attentive, and no American heart too devoted. They succeeded; and to-day you reap the fruits of their success. 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. What, to the American Slave, Is Your To say now that America was right, and England wrong, is exceedingly easy. Fellow-citizens, I shall not presume to dwell at length on the associations that cluster about this day. The iron shoe, and crippled foot of China must be seen, in contrast with nature. That point is conceded already. "What to the Slave is the 4th of July?" What to the American slave is your 4th of July? By an act of the American Congress, not yet two years old, slavery has been nationalized in its most horrible and revolting form.
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