I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies. You invite to your shores fugitives of oppression from abroad, honor them with banquets, greet them with ovations, cheer them, toast them, salute them, protect them, and pour out your money to them like water; but the fugitives from your own land you advertise, hunt, arrest, shoot and kill. 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. Under Title 17 U.S.C. As the champions of oppressors, the chosen men of American theology have appeared men, honored for their so-called piety, and their real learning. WebFrederick Douglass, Fifth of July speech (1852) O! What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? The sunlight that brought life and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Convert your audio or video into 99% accurate text by a professional. 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. How should I look today, in the presence of Americans, dividing, and subdividing a discourse, to show that men have a natural right to freedom? 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. To me the American slave-trade is a terrible reality. Cast one glance, if you please, upon that young mother, whose shoulders are bare to the scorching sun, her briny tears falling on the brow of the babe in her arms. With brave men there is always a remedy for oppression. Of this sort of change they are always strongly in favor. You shed tears over fallen Hungary, and make the sad story of her wrongs the theme of your poets, statesmen and orators, till your gallant sons are ready to fly to arms to vindicate her cause against her oppressors; but, in regard to the ten thousand wrongs of the American slave, you would enforce the strictest silence, and would hail him as an enemy of the nation who dares to make those wrongs the subject of public discourse! This certainly sounds large, and out of the common way, for it is true that I have often had the privilege to speak in this beautiful Hall, and to address many who now honor me with their presence. weeping, as she thinks of the mother from whom she has been torn! The causes which led to the separation of the colonies from the British crown have never lacked for a tongue. The sin of which it is guilty is one of omission as well as of commission. 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. Ever ready to drink, to treat, and to gamble. This truth is not a doubtful one. 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. Try Rev and save time transcribing, captioning, and subtitling. I say it with a sad sense of disparity between us. Become a freelancer and work on your own terms. The questions are designed to provoke thought and guide the students through the document. The coming into being of a nation, in any circumstances, is an interesting event. 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. If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. What to the Slave is the 4th of July? Speech Transcript by Frederick Douglass, Congressional Testimony & Hearing Transcripts. 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. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. Your cause would be much more likely to succeed. It destroys your moral power abroad; it corrupts your politicians at home. When a child, my soul was often pierced with a sense of its horrors. Mark them! 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. Thoughts expressed on one side of the Atlantic, are distinctly heard on the other. President John F. Kennedy On July 4, 1962 President John F. Kennedy delivered this speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 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. 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. 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.. 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 case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the lame man leap as an hart.. The papers and placards say, that I am to deliver a 4th [of] July oration. I will not excuse. Oppression makes a wise man mad. At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. That, which is inhuman cannot be divine. Douglass gave this speech to a group of abolitionists 168 years ago. It would, certainly, prove nothing, as to what part I might have taken, had I lived during the great controversy of 1776. If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. But I differ from those who charge this baseness on the framers of the Constitution of the United States. 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! The ear-piercing fife and the stirring drum unite their accents with the ascending peal of a thousand church bells. 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. Neither steam nor lightning had then been reduced to order and discipline. Am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to Rob them of their Liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with ions, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? You may rejoice. The population was weak and scattered, and the country a wilderness unsubdued. 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. Fellow-citizens; above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! WebFrederick Douglass, July 5, 1852 INTRODUCTION (Exordium) 1. The timid and the prudent (as has been intimated) of that day, were, of course, shocked and alarmed by it. Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood and stained with pollution is wrong? For my part, I would say, welcome infidelity! Their conduct was wholly unexceptionable. 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 See, too, that girl of thirteen, weeping, yes! Our eyes are met with demonstrations of joyous enthusiasm. 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. Frederick Douglass's, What To the Slave Is the Fourth of With them, nothing was settled that was not right. Racist Ex-University Of Kentucky 'Karen' Sophia Rosing Is Charged For Assaulting Black Student. What was possible for him, he sincerely believed was possible for any man who was willing to work hard. Frederick Douglass: (05:02) As the sheet anchor takes a firmer hold, when the ship is tossed by the storm, so did the cause of your fathers grow stronger, as it breasted the chilling blasts of kingly displeasure. It is carried on in all the large towns and cities in one-half of this confederacy; and millions are pocketed every year, by dealers in this horrid traffic. He is a bird for the sportsmans gun. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth! To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world. They seized upon eternal principles, and set a glorious example in their defense. Transcripts & captions for a better media workflow. He rose from the shackles of slavery to become an author, newspaper publisher, and respected abolitionist. They were great men too great enough to give fame to a great age. It is not the gentle shower, but thunder. 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. 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! There is hope in the thought, and hope is much needed, under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon. Frederick Douglass: (06:03) Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? Yea! His own testimony is nothing. I trust, however, that mine will not be so considered. 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. The time for such argument is passed. We are called upon to prove that we are men. What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible being? What have I, or those I represent to do with your national independence. 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. For who is there so cold that a nation sympathy cannot warm him, who so adore it and dead to the claims of gratitude that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.. At some future period I will gladly avail myself of an opportunity to give this subject a full and fair discussion. This is a primary source reading analysis of Frederick Douglass' famous speech. be warned! 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, It was demanded, in the name of humanity, and according to the law of the living God. Walled cities and empires have become unfashionable. Who can reason on such a proposition? Space is comparatively annihilated. Such people lived then, had lived before, and will, probably, ever have a place on this planet; and their course, in respect to any great change, (no matter how great the good to be attained, or the wrong to be redressed by it), may be calculated with as much precision as can be the course of the stars. 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. Even Mammon seems to have quitted his grasp on this day. This Fourth [of] July isyours, notmine. And the conscience of the nation must be roused. Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who WebCelebrating 200 years of Frederick Douglass. There is blasphemy in the thought. Transcribe your audio files to find high-impact insights in minutes. Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice embodied in that Declaration of Independence extended to us? 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.. For who is there so cold, that a nations sympathy could not warm him? 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! He who will, intelligently, lay down his life for his country, is a man whom it is not in human nature to despise. They petitioned and remonstrated; they did so in a decorous, respectful, and loyal manner. They loved their country better than their own private interests; and, though this is not the highest form of human excellence, all will concede that it is a rare virtue, and that when it is exhibited, it ought to command respect. The iron shoe, and crippled foot of China must be seen, in contrast with nature. I am not that man. Fellow-citizens, I shall not presume to dwell at length on the associations that cluster about this day. This, for the purpose of this celebration, is the 4th of July. be warned! Feeling themselves harshly and unjustly treated by the home government, your fathers, like men of honesty, and men of spirit, earnestly sought redress. On the other hand it will be found to contain principles and purposes, entirely hostile to the existence of slavery. The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong city. They were peace men; but they preferred revolution to peaceful submission to bondage. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. May he not hope that high lessons of wisdom, of justice and of truth, will yet give direction to her destiny? What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible being? WebA speech celebrating both Lincoln and African Americans freedom wrought by Lincoln. This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. No, I will not. Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation? 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. Frederick Douglass: (01:08) "What to the Slave is the 4th of July?" They were quiet men; but they did not shrink from agitating against oppression. Copyright 2023 Interactive One, LLC. They saw themselves treated with sovereign indifference, coldness and scorn. 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. Citizens, your fathers made good that resolution. Not fewer than forty Americans have, within the past two years, been hunted down and, without a moments warning, hurried away in chains, and consigned to slavery and excruciating torture. Get a weekly digest of the weeks most important transcripts in your inbox. 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. Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) was a social reformer and advocate, abolitionist, orator, writer, minister, and statesman. The Fugitive SlaveLawmakes mercy to them a crime; and bribes the judge who tries them. 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? Fair use is permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. The propriety of the nation must be startled. Translated on-screen subtitles for videos. 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. It is the antagonistic force in your government, the only thing that seriously disturbs and endangers yourUnion. Morel is right that the 1876 speech by Frederick Douglass is remarkable and masterful. Under these, and innumerable other disadvantages, your fathers declared for liberty and independence and triumphed. Friends and citizens, I need not enter further into the causes which led to this anniversary. They who did so were accounted in their day, plotters of mischief, agitators and rebels, dangerous men. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, who does not know that slavery is wrong for him. But neither their familiar faces, nor the perfect gage I think I have of Corinthian Hall, seems to free me from embarrassment. 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. Douglass views the monument and the day's ceremonies as reflecting honor upon African And instead of being the honest men I have before declared them to be, they were the veriest imposters that ever practiced on mankind. 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 fathers esteemed the English Government as the home government; and England as the fatherland. 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 or to write. From police shootings to the wage gap to crippling stereotypes (and everything in between), there are too many parallels today with what Douglass described in his speech to white America, including this relevant line. 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. 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 accepted time with God and his cause is the ever-living now. America is false to the past, false to the present and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. 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. It has been denounced with burning words, from the high places of the nation, as an execrable traffic. According to this fact, you are, even now, only in the beginning of your national career, still lingering in the period of childhood. Web" was a speech delivered by Frederick Douglass on July 5, 1852, at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York, at a meeting organized by the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery The simple story of it is that, 76 years ago, the people of this country were British subjects. 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. I must mourn. 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. Your fathers staked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, on the cause of their country. Standing here identified with the American bondsmen, making his wrongs mine. It was a startling idea, much more so, than we, at this distance of time, regard it. Fully appreciating the hardship to be encountered, firmly believing in the right of their cause, honorably inviting the scrutiny of an on-looking world, reverently appealing to heaven to attest their sincerity, soundly comprehending the solemn responsibility they were about to assume, wisely measuring the terrible odds against them, your fathers, the fathers of this republic, did, most deliberately, under the inspiration of a glorious patriotism, and with a sublime faith in the great principles of justice and freedom, lay deep the corner-stone of the national superstructure, which has risen and still rises in grandeur around you. To say now that America was right, and England wrong, is exceedingly easy. It is neither. Ex-Senator Benton tells us that the price of men was never higher than now. Frederick Douglass: (03:37) Now, take the Constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. My subject then, fellow citizens, is American slavery. By that most foul and fiendish of all human decrees, the liberty and person of every man are put in peril. Frederick Douglass thought that such rationalizations were crap, and he had the right to think so. will be found by Americans. On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? The task before me is one which requires much previous thought and study for its proper performance. 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. To him, your celebration is a sham, your boasted Liberty, an unholy license, your national greatness, swelling vanity. They showed forbearance; but that they knew its limits. From the round top of your ship of state, dark and threatening clouds may be seen. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, not by me. Its deeply moving to hear Douglass defend the honor of Black soldiers in his 1863 speech, The Proclamation And a Negro Army, read by Colman Domingo, while his final speech, 1894s Lessons of the Hour, lays out the crucial steps toward achieving equality that have yet to be followed today.The actor selected to read these words is Such a declaration of agreement on my part would not be worth much to anybody. Your fathers were wise men, and if they did not go mad, they became restive under this treatment. 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. To all inspiring motives, to noble deeds which can be gained from the past, we are welcome. The time for such argument is past. 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. May of Syracuse, and my esteemed friend (Rev. Frederick Douglass: (00:26) Oh! There, see the old man, with locks thinned and gray. You may rejoice, I must mourn.. 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! Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? In the summer of 2020, the U.S. commemorated Independence Day amid nationwide I scarcely need say, fellow-citizens, that my opinion of those measures fully accords with that of your fathers. Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? The 4th of July is the first great fact in your nations history the very ring-bolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny. Everybody can say it; the dastard, not less than the noble brave, can flippantly discant on the tyranny of England towards the American Colonies.
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