That bolt drawn, that chain broken, and all is lost. The population of the country, at the time, stood at the insignificant number of three millions. Let this damning fact be perpetually told. The cause of liberty may be stabbed by the men who glory in the deeds of your fathers. WebFrederick Douglass speech Historical Document "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro" 1852 Resource Bank Contents Click here for the text of this historical document. Let the religious press, the pulpit, the Sunday school, the conference meeting, the great ecclesiastical, missionary, Bible and tract associations of the land array their immense powers against slavery and slave-holding; and the whole system of crime and blood would be scattered to the winds; and that they do not do this involves them in the most awful responsibility of which the mind can conceive. 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. You have already declared it. Under Title 17 U.S.C. His own testimony is nothing. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. Calculate how much it costs to transcribe, caption, or subtitle your content. It would, certainly, prove nothing, as to what part I might have taken, had I lived during the great controversy of 1776. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.. Frederick Douglass: (02:57) 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, You may well cherish the memory of such men. here lies the merit, and the one which, of all others, seems unfashionable in our day. In order to put an end to it, some of these last have consented that their colored brethren (nominally free) should leave this country, and establish themselves on the western coast of Africa! Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? WebFrederick Douglass, July 5, 1852 INTRODUCTION (Exordium) 1. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, lowering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin! There are exceptions, and I thank God that there are. Add English on-screen subtitles for videos. Take the American slave-trade, which, we are told by the papers, is especially prosperous just now. Of this fundamental work, this day is the anniversary. 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. They were great men too great enough to give fame to a great age. My subject, then fellow-citizens, is AMERICAN SLAVERY. Seventy-six years, though a good old age for a man, is but a mere speck in the life of a nation. 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. They may sometimes rise in quiet and stately majesty, and inundate the land, refreshing and fertilizing the earth with their mysterious properties. Friends and citizens, I need not enter further into the causes which led to this anniversary. I will use the severest language I can command. It was demanded, in the name of humanity, and according to the law of the living God. Of this sort of change they are always strongly in favor. It is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. I scout the idea that the question of the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of slavery is not a question for the people. Your fathers staked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, on the cause of their country. Africa must rise and put on her yet unwoven garment. There, the church, true to its mission of ameliorating, elevating, and improving the condition of mankind, came forward promptly, bound up the wounds of the West Indian slave, and restored him to his liberty. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour. For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. Just here, the idea of a total separation of the colonies from the crown was born! The manhood of the slave is conceded. The slaveholders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. Senator Berrien tell us that the Constitution is the fundamental law, that which controls all others. But, to proceed. 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. will be found by Americans. This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. Such a declaration of agreement on my part would not be worth much to anybody. 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. Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The papers and placards say, that I am to deliver a 4th [of] July oration. 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 Extend your content reach and maximize your engagement rates. What, then, remains to be argued? 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 fiat of the Almighty, Let there be Light, has not yet spent its force. Frederick Douglass: (01:08) They showed forbearance; but that they knew its limits. Then would my task be light and my burden easy and delightful? Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. 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. 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. Noble men may be found, scattered all over these Northern States, of whom Henry Ward Beecher of Brooklyn, Samuel J. I am glad, fellow-citizens, that your nation is so young. Resolved, That these united colonies are, and of right, ought to be free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown; and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, dissolved.. There was, at that time, a grand slave mart kept at the head of Pratt Street, by Austin Woldfolk. 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. For 186 years this doctrine of national independence has shaken the globeand it remains the most powerful force anywhere in the world today. 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. 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. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? 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. To arrest it, to put an end to it, this nation keeps a squadron, at immense cost, on the coast of Africa. we wept when we remembered Zion. That is a branch of knowledge in which you feel, perhaps, a much deeper interest than your speaker. 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. 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 blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. Easily integrate Rev using our robust APIs to start building your product quickly. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. All this we affirm to be true of the popular church, and the popular worship of our land and nation a religion, a church, and a worship which, on the authority of inspired wisdom, we pronounce to be an abomination in the sight of God. These wretched people are to be sold singly, or in lots, to suit purchasers. 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. Copyright 2023 Interactive One, LLC. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. Frederick Douglass's, What To the Slave Is the Fourth of Ever ready to drink, to treat, and to gamble. 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? Then, I dare to affirm, notwithstanding all I have said before, your fathers stooped, basely stooped. 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. 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 may also rise in wrath and fury, and bear away, on their angry waves, the accumulated wealth of years of toil and hardship. 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. It fetters your progress; it is the enemy of improvement, the deadly foe of education; it fosters pride; it breeds insolence; it promotes vice; it shelters crime; it is a curse to the earth that supports it; and yet, you cling to it, as if it were the sheet anchor of all your hopes. The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong city. But, with that blindness which seems to be the unvarying characteristic of tyrants, since Pharaoh and his hosts were drowned in the Red Sea, the British Government persisted in the exactions complained of. In 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). The existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretence, and your Christianity as a lie. Many of its most eloquent Divines. 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! What to the Slave is the 4th of July? Speech Transcript by Frederick Douglass, Congressional Testimony & Hearing Transcripts. Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. Build with the best speech-to-text APIs around. He mentions the fact to show that slavery is in no danger. 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. I do not hesitate to declare with all my soul that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July. Read its preamble, consider its purposes. How circumspect, exact and proportionate were all their movements! 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.
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