All Rights Reserved. in preference to the gospel,as preached by those Divines! If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. Ever ready to drink, to treat, and to gamble. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth. 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. You glory in your refinement and your universal education yet you maintain a system as barbarous and dreadful as ever stained the character of a nation a system begun in avarice, supported in pride, and perpetuated in cruelty. 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. You will see one of these human flesh-jobbers, armed with pistol, whip and bowie-knife, driving a company of a hundred men, women, and children, from the Potomac to the slave market at New Orleans. During 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 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, When you can point to any such laws in reference to the beasts of the field, then I may consent to argue the manhood of the slave. Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What to the Slave is the 4th of July? Speech Transcript by Frederick Douglass, Congressional Testimony & Hearing Transcripts. The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong city. With little experience and with less learning, I have been able to throw my thoughts hastily and imperfectly together; and On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass gave a speech at an Independence Day celebration organized by the Rochester Ladies Anti-Slavery Society. I scarcely need say, fellow-citizens, that my opinion of those measures fully accords with that of your fathers. 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. His own testimony is nothing. 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. we wept when we remembered Zion. But neither their familiar faces, nor the perfect gage I think I have of Corinthian Hall, seems to free me from embarrassment. Mark them! 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? Yea! They showed forbearance; but that they knew its limits. A speech given at Rochester, New York, July 5, 1852 . The time was when such could be done. Morel is right that the 1876 speech by Frederick Douglass is remarkable and masterful. Frederick Douglass thought that such rationalizations were crap, and he had the right to think so. The flesh-mongers gather up their victims by dozens, and drive them, chained, to the general depot at Baltimore. They inhabit all our Southern States. At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. 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. 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. These men were generally well dressed men, and very captivating in their manners. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. Suicide Note Revealed After Shocking Death, Mississippi Cops Beat, Waterboarded Handcuffed Black Men, Shot 1 For Dating White Women': Lawyers, Indicted! It is the antagonistic force in your government, the only thing that seriously disturbs and endangers yourUnion. He mentions the fact to show that slavery is in no danger. Speech-to-Text live streaming for live captions, powered by the worlds leading speech recognition API. 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. It would, certainly, prove nothing, as to what part I might have taken, had I lived during the great controversy of 1776. America is false to the past, false to the present and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. 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. By that act, Mason and Dixons line has been obliterated; New York has become as Virginia; and the power to hold, hunt, and sell men, women, and children as slaves remains no longer a mere state institution, but is now an institution of the whole United States. Where these go, may also go the merciless slave-hunter. By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. On the 2d of July, 1776, the old Continental Congress, to the dismay of the lovers of ease, and the worshipers of property, clothed that dreadful idea with all the authority of national sanction. But, besides general considerations, there were peculiar circumstances which make the advent of this republic an event of special attractiveness. Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice embodied in that Declaration of Independence extended to us? 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. Easily integrate Rev using our robust APIs to start building your product quickly. What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible being? Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? By an act of the American Congress, not yet two years old, slavery has been nationalized in its most horrible and revolting form. Long established customs of hurtful character could formerly fence themselves in, and do their evil work with social impunity. May of Syracuse, and my esteemed friend (Rev. Sydney Smith tells us that men seldom eulogize the wisdom and virtues of their fathers, but to excuse some folly or wickedness of their own. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost. They were great in their day and generation. 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 From the round top of your ship of state, dark and threatening clouds may be seen. It has been denounced with burning words, from the high places of the nation, as an execrable traffic. or is it in the temple? What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? I remember, also, that, as a people, Americans are remarkably familiar with all facts which make in their own favor. I know that apologies of this sort are generally considered flat and unmeaning. 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! The greatest and best of British statesmen admitted its justice, and the loftiest eloquence of the British Senate came to its support. Americans! will be found by Americans. 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. Thu 5 Jul 2018 07.00 EDT Last modified on Wed 24 Jul 2019 11.58 EDT. They, that can, may. Frederick Douglass: (02:57) You know what is a swine-drover? 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. And instead of being the honest men I have before declared them to be, they were the veriest imposters that ever practiced on mankind. welcome atheism! Your broad republican domain is hunting ground formen. 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. Citizens, your fathers made good that resolution. 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. At some future period I will gladly avail myself of an opportunity to give this subject a full and fair discussion. WebFrederick Douglass speech Historical Document "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro" 1852 Resource Bank Contents Click here for the text of this historical document. 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! Space is comparatively annihilated. Now, there are certain rules of interpretation, for the proper understanding of all legal instruments. See this drove sold and separated forever; and never forget the deep, sad sobs that arose from that scattered multitude. But I differ from those who charge this baseness on the framers of the Constitution of the United States. 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. Fellow-citizens, I shall not presume to dwell at length on the associations that cluster about this day. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. The Best Speech-to-Text Solution for Your Business Learn how Rev fits into your businesses workflow. Their conduct was wholly unexceptionable. who stand as the very lights of the church, have shamelessly given the sanction of religion and the Bible to the whole slave system. This is a primary source reading analysis of Frederick Douglass' famous speech. In the text it states, above all, confessing and worshipping the Christian God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave- we are called upon to prove that we are men? (Douglas 763). Is slavery among them? 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. To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding. There, see the old man, with locks thinned and gray. 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: This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. 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. 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. 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. On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? 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. And it would go hard with that politician who presumed to solicit the votes of the people without inscribing this motto on his banner. 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. Should I seem at ease, my appearance would much misrepresent me. 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. 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. Friends and citizens, I need not enter further into the causes which led to this anniversary. 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.. The style and title of your sovereign people (in which you now glory) was not then born. For my part, I would say, welcome infidelity! My subject, then fellow-citizens, is AMERICAN SLAVERY. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. The ear-piercing fife and the stirring drum unite their accents with the ascending peal of a thousand church bells. We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future. A feeling has crept over me, quite unfavorable to the exercise of my limited powers of speech. To all inspiring motives, to noble deeds which can be gained from the past, we are welcome. 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. I say it with a sad sense of disparity between us. To arrest it, to put an end to it, this nation keeps a squadron, at immense cost, on the coast of Africa. 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! These wretched people are to be sold singly, or in lots, to suit purchasers. 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Frederick Douglass: (06:44) Frederick Douglass: (07:35) Their solid manhood stands out the more as we contrast it with these degenerate times. As with rivers so with nations. Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) was a social reformer and advocate, abolitionist, orator, writer, minister, and statesman. 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. I am not that man. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. that it should be so; yet so it is. 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. Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to those questions. Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has Make your content more accessible to people with disabilities. Senator Berrien tell us that the Constitution is the fundamental law, that which controls all others. 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. Standing here identified with the American bondsmen, making his wrongs mine. The blessings in which you this day rejoice are not enjoyed in common. 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. Even Mammon seems to have quitted his grasp on this day. In the summer of 2020, the U.S. commemorated Independence Day amid nationwide You have no right to enjoy a childs share in the labor of your fathers, unless your children are to be blest by your labors. Many of its most eloquent Divines. I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. The time for such argument is past. My soul sickens at the sight. The most accurate AI-powered transcription on the market. Who can reason on such a proposition? Descendants of Frederick Douglass read excerpts from one of his most famous speeches: What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? 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. 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! These gentlemen have, as I think, fully and clearly vindicated the Constitution from any design to support slavery for an hour. Ex-Senator Benton tells us that the price of men was never higher than now. Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation? There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, that does not know that slavery is wrong for him. Your cause would be much more likely to succeed. Were the nation older, the patriots heart might be sadder, and the reformers brow heavier. Washington could not die till he had broken the chains of his slaves. 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. It is a slander upon their memory, at least, so I believe. It was demanded, in the name of humanity, and according to the law of the living God. What? Heavy billows, like mountains in the distance, disclose to the leeward huge forms of flinty rocks! 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. But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. The Fugitive SlaveLawmakes mercy to them a crime; and bribes the judge who tries them. Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. For it is not light that is needed, but fire. The Sharps, the Clarksons, the Wilberforces, the Buxtons, and Burchells and the Knibbs, were alike famous for their piety, and for their philanthropy. In their admiration of liberty, they lost sight of all other interests. 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! The population of the country, at the time, stood at the insignificant number of three millions. 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. No nation can now shut itself up from the surrounding world, and trot round in the same old path of its fathers without interference. Travel through South America. 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. What, 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 irons, 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? 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. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the lame man leap as an hart.. In the deep still darkness of midnight, I have been often aroused by the dead heavy footsteps, and the piteous cries of the chained gangs that passed our door. This trade is one of the peculiarities of American institutions. Copyright 2023 Interactive One, LLC. According to this fact, you are, even now, only in the beginning of your national career, still lingering in the period of childhood. It has made itself the bulwark of American slavery, and the shield of American slave-hunters. Tell me citizens, WHERE, under the sun, you can witness a spectacle more fiendish and shocking. 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? Oh! 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. 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.. 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. Everybody can say it; the dastard, not less than the noble brave, can flippantly discant on the tyranny of England towards the American Colonies. There is consolation in the thought that America is young. I was born amid such sights and scenes. 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. He rose from the shackles of slavery to become an author, newspaper publisher, and respected abolitionist. That he is the rightful owner of his own body? Yet they persevered. But the church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of the slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors. Of this sort of change they are always strongly in favor. 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. 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. Three score years and ten is the allotted time for individual men; but nations number their years by thousands. His death, according to Douglass was not only tragic, but also prevented recently freed slaves and African Americans from gaining the ear of wise and well-intentioned leader. An American judge gets ten dollars for every victim he consigns to slavery, and five, when he fails to do so. By that most foul and fiendish of all human decrees, the liberty and person of every man are put in peril. Then, I dare to affirm, notwithstanding all I have said before, your fathers stooped, basely stooped. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery the great sin and shame of America! With them, nothing was settled that was not right. That is a branch of knowledge in which you feel, perhaps, a much deeper interest than your speaker. Is a matter, the set with great difficulty involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard to understand? Knowledge was then confined and enjoyed by the privileged few, and the multitude walked on in mental darkness. The drove moves tardily. But, to proceed. See, too, that girl of thirteen, weeping, yes! 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. Oceans no longer divide, but link nations together. They who did so were accounted in their day, plotters of mischief, agitators and rebels, dangerous men. They were quiet men; but they did not shrink from agitating against oppression. Let this damning fact be perpetually told. WebA speech celebrating both Lincoln and African Americans freedom wrought by Lincoln. and am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us? It is a religion for oppressors, tyrants, man-stealers, andthugs. This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. They are a trouble to me; I am weary to bear them; and when ye spread forth your hands I will hide mine eyes from you. 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. 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. It is not that pure and undefiled religion which is from above, and which is first pure, then peaceable, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits,without partiality, and without hypocrisy. But a religion which favors the rich against the poor; which exalts the proud above the humble; which divides mankind into two classes, tyrants and slaves; which says to the man in chains,stay there; and to the oppressor,oppress on; it is a religion which may be professed and enjoyed by all the robbers and enslavers of mankind; it makes God a respecter of persons, denies his fatherhood of the race, and tramples in the dust the great truth of the brotherhood of man. Banners and pennants wave exultingly on the breeze.
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