It is a religion for oppressors, tyrants, man-stealers, andthugs. I have better employment for my time and strength than such arguments would imply. 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. 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. For who is there so cold, that a nations sympathy could not warm him? 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. But neither their familiar faces, nor the perfect gage I think I have of Corinthian Hall, seems to free me from embarrassment. Their solid manhood stands out the more as we contrast it with these degenerate times. The Lords of Buffalo, the Springs of New York, the Lathrops of Auburn, the Coxes and Spencers of Brooklyn, the Gannets and Sharps of Boston, the Deweys of Washington, and other great religious lights of the land have, in utter denial of the authority ofHimby whom they professed to be called to the ministry, deliberately taught us, against the example or the Hebrews and against the remonstrance of the Apostles, they teachthat we ought to obey mans law before the law of God. What, then, remains to be argued? 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. 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. 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? Born to an enslaved family in 1818, Frederick Douglass never knew his actual birthday, a fact not uncommon for those enslaved. Frederick Douglass: (00:26) 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! You may well cherish the memory of such men. WebThe Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro by Frederick Douglass. 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. For there, they that carried us away captive, required of us a song; and they who wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. The time for such argument is past. Morel is right that the 1876 speech by Frederick Douglass is remarkable and masterful. I scarcely need say, fellow-citizens, that my opinion of those measures fully accords with that of your fathers. I cannot. There were then no means of concert and combination, such as exist now. What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Frederick Douglass Read the full transcript here. Calculate how much it costs to transcribe, caption, or subtitle your content. 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 blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who It was fashionable, hundreds of years ago, for the children of Jacob to boast, we have Abraham to our father, when they had long lost Abrahams faith and spirit. They hate all changes, but silver, gold and copper change! There is blasphemy in the thought. Take the American slave-trade, which, we are told by the papers, is especially prosperous just now. 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. The arm of the Lord is not shortened, and the doom of slavery is certain. Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has Would you argue more, and denounce less, would you persuade more, and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed. When a sufficient number have been collected here, a ship is chartered, for the purpose of conveying the forlorn crew to Mobile, or to New Orleans. What to the Slave is the 4th of July? Speech Transcript by Frederick Douglass, Congressional Testimony & Hearing Transcripts. 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. Frederick Douglass: (03:37) My business, if I have any here today, is with the present. There is consolation in the thought that America is young. weeping, as she thinks of the mother from whom she has been torn! 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. Heavy billows, like mountains in the distance, disclose to the leeward huge forms of flinty rocks! With brave men there is always a remedy for oppression. Americans! Without this right, the liberty of an American citizen would be as insecure as that of a Frenchman. That is a branch of knowledge in which you feel, perhaps, a much deeper interest than your speaker. It has made itself the bulwark of American slavery, and the shield of American slave-hunters. He is a bird for the sportsmans gun. 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. I will not equivocate. But now is the time, the important time. Frederick Douglass They are food for the cotton-field, and the deadly sugar-mill. You could instruct me in regard to them. You have already declared it. The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong city. Copyright 2023 Interactive One, LLC. Space is comparatively annihilated. Washington could not die till he had broken the chains of his slaves. 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. A feeling has crept over me, quite unfavorable to the exercise of my limited powers of speech. They seized upon eternal principles, and set a glorious example in their defense. 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. Frederick Douglass: (06:44) For my part, I would say, welcome infidelity! Thoughts expressed on one side of the Atlantic, are distinctly heard on the other. Seventy-six years, though a good old age for a man, is but a mere speck in the life of a nation. 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. "What to the Slave is the 4th of July?" Speech Transcript That trade has long since been denounced by this government, as piracy. In that instrument I hold there is neither warrant, license, nor sanction of the hateful thing; but, interpreted as it ought to be interpreted, the Constitution is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT. Your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless, your shouts of Liberty and equality, hallow mocked, your prayers and hymns your sermons and Thanksgivings with all your religious parade in solemnity are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, a thin veil to cover up crimes, which would disgrace a nation of savages. But, besides general considerations, there were peculiar circumstances which make the advent of this republic an event of special attractiveness. VIDEO: Frederick Douglass' descendants deliver his 'Fourth of July' The Best Speech-to-Text Solution for Your Business Learn how Rev fits into your businesses workflow. Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood and stained with pollution is wrong? Everybody can say it; the dastard, not less than the noble brave, can flippantly discant on the tyranny of England towards the American Colonies. That bolt drawn, that chain broken, and all is lost. 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 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. There, see the old man, with locks thinned and gray. Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to those questions. 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. The questions are designed to provoke thought and guide the students through the document. Is slavery among them? 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. 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. On the other hand it will be found to contain principles and purposes, entirely hostile to the existence of slavery. The message of Frederick Douglasss 1852 speech on the contradiction of Americas just ideals and unjust realities endures. 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! My subject, then fellow-citizens, is AMERICAN SLAVERY. The greatest and best of British statesmen admitted its justice, and the loftiest eloquence of the British Senate came to its support. The din of business, too, is hushed. 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.. 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, . With little experience and with less learning, I have been able to throw my thoughts hastily and imperfectly together; and Speech Fellow citizens, this murderous traffic is, today, in active operation in this boasted republic. Cling to this day cling to it, and to its principles, with the grasp of a storm-tossed mariner to a spar at midnight. 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. I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people! 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! I will not excuse. The whole scene, as I look back to it, was simple, dignified and sublime. 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). Fair use is permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. 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. WebAn excerpt from the 1847 Frederick Douglass speech given for the anniversary of the American Anti-Slavery Society. 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's, What To the Slave Is the Fourth of These wretched people are to be sold singly, or in lots, to suit purchasers. To me the American slave-trade is a terrible reality. Where these go, may also go the merciless slave-hunter. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? 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. WebFrederick Douglass, July 5, 1852 INTRODUCTION (Exordium) 1. who stand as the very lights of the church, have shamelessly given the sanction of religion and the Bible to the whole slave system. 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. As the champions of oppressors, the chosen men of American theology have appeared men, honored for their so-called piety, and their real learning. The duty to extirpate and destroy it, is admitted even by our DOCTORS OF DIVINITY. Frederick Douglass' Descendants Read His Famous 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. I will not. Do you mean citizens to mock me by asking me to speak today? Speech-to-Text live streaming for live captions, powered by the worlds leading speech recognition API. But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. America is false to the past, false to the present and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Three score years and ten is the allotted time for individual men; but nations number their years by thousands. They were great in their day and generation. And the conscience of the nation must be roused. The hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed and its crimes against God and man must be denounced. 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. They believed in order; but not in the order of tyranny. And it would go hard with that politician who presumed to solicit the votes of the people without inscribing this motto on his banner. 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. The country was poor in the munitions of war. Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. You live and must die, and you must do your work. I am glad, fellow-citizens, that your nation is so young. All Rights Reserved. Is that a question for Republicans? President John F. Kennedy On July 4, 1962 President John F. Kennedy delivered this speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The manhood of the slave is conceded. Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. The flesh-mongers gather up their victims by dozens, and drive them, chained, to the general depot at Baltimore. 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 and question and to denounce with all the emphasis I can command everything that serves to perpetuate slavery, the great sin and shame of America. These rules are well established. You will not, therefore, be surprised, if in what I have to say I evince no elaborate preparation, nor grace my speech with any high sounding exordium. 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. 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. 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. Would you argue more and denounce less? 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. or is it in the temple? 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. They saw themselves treated with sovereign indifference, coldness and scorn. Africa must rise and put on her yet unwoven garment. The time for such argument is passed. Banners and pennants wave exultingly on the breeze. All Rights Reserved. The drove moves tardily. That I am here to-day is, to me, a matter of astonishment as well as of gratitude. What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible being? 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 sunlight that brought life and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me. 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, See, too, that girl of thirteen, weeping, yes! At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. Frederick Douglass: (02:57) What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible being? The causes which led to the separation of the colonies from the British crown have never lacked for a tongue. we wept when we remembered Zion. Frederick Douglass Nobody doubts it. It saps the foundation of religion; it makes your name a hissing, and a bye-word to a mocking earth. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.. Oceans no longer divide, but link nations together. And am I therefore called upon to bring our humble offering to the national alter and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us? It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. They were quiet men; but they did not shrink from agitating against oppression. What have I, or those I represent to do with your national independence. My subject then, fellow citizens, is American slavery. It is neither. 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? The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. They strip the love of God of its beauty, and leave the throng of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form. The feeling of the nation must be quickened. Oppression makes a wise man mad. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth. What would be thought of an instrument, drawn up, legally drawn up, for the purpose of entitling the city of Rochester to a track of land, in which no mention of land was made? But I admit, where all is plain, there is nothing to be argued. Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? 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 coming into being of a nation, in any circumstances, is an interesting event. 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. Need I tell you that the Jews are not the only people who built the tombs of the prophets, and garnished the sepulchres of the righteous? 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! Transcripts & captions for a better media workflow. There is hope in the thought, and hope is much needed, under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon. I am not that man. "The Lessons of the Hour" Speech by Frederick Douglass Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation, as a matter beset with great difficulty, involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard to be understood? Is a matter, the set with great difficulty involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard to understand? Frederick Douglass: (06:03) WebCelebrating 200 years of Frederick Douglass. Frederick Douglass: Self-Made Man Speech | The Art of Manliness Your fathers were wise men, and if they did not go mad, they became restive under this treatment. Celebrating Frederick Douglass through Transcription 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. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. 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. It was a startling idea, much more so, than we, at this distance of time, regard it. WebIn this speech, Frederick Douglass reflected on how the outpouring of joy at the conclusion of the Civil War turned to mourning with Lincolns assassination. He rose from the shackles of slavery to become an author, newspaper publisher, and respected abolitionist. At the very moment that they are thanking God for the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty, and for the right to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences, they are utterly silent in respect to a law which robs religion of its chief significance, and makes it utterly worthless to a world lying in wickedness. They felt themselves the victims of grievous wrongs, wholly incurable in their colonial capacity. It has been denounced with burning words, from the high places of the nation, as an execrable traffic. In their admiration of liberty, they lost sight of all other interests. You were under the British Crown. Behold the practical operation of this internal slave-trade, the American slave-trade, sustained by American politics and America religion. To say now that America was right, and England wrong, is exceedingly easy. welcome anything! Frederick Douglass thought that such rationalizations were crap, and he had the right to think so. You discourse eloquently on the dignity of labor; yet, you sustain a system which, in its very essence, casts a stigma upon labor. 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. We are met on the threshold of our efforts for the redemption of the slave, by the church and ministry of the country, in battle arrayed against us; and we are compelled to fight or flee. The population of the country, at the time, stood at the insignificant number of three millions. Easily integrate Rev using our robust APIs to start building your product quickly. They, however, gradually flow back to the same old channel, and flow on as serenely as ever. 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. The sin of which it is guilty is one of omission as well as of commission. This trade is one of the peculiarities of American institutions. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. Create a better, more engaging experience for every student. That point is conceded already. Would you persuade more and rebuke less? 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. 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! A Nation's Story: What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? It is a slander upon their memory, at least, so I believe. Its the news, without the news.