I have better employment for my time and strength than such arguments would imply. This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. 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.. This is a primary source reading analysis of Frederick Douglass' famous speech. And instead of being the honest men I have before declared them to be, they were the veriest imposters that ever practiced on mankind. Your fathers have lived, died, and have done their work, and have done much of it well. The papers and placards say, that I am to deliver a 4th [of] July oration. May he not hope that high lessons of wisdom, of justice and of truth, will yet give direction to her destiny? If I do forget, if I do not 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. What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible being? Fromwhat quarter, I beg to know, has proceeded a fire so deadly upon our ranks, during the last two years, as from the Northern pulpit? From Boston to London is now a holiday excursion. Our Composite Nation: Frederick Douglass America Fellow-citizens; above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! This is esteemed by some as a national trait perhaps a national weakness. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Standing, there, identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, 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! Frederick Douglass: (10:31) When the dogs in your street, 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, then I will argue with you that the slave is a man. 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. Thoughts expressed on one side of the Atlantic, are distinctly heard on the other. Frederick Douglass delivered 'best Fourth of July speech in The message of Frederick Douglasss 1852 speech on the contradiction of Americas just ideals and unjust realities endures. There are illustrations of it near and remote, ancient and modern. 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.. Youmay rejoice,Imust mourn. My business, if I have any here today, is with the present. Like our content? From the Potomac to the Delaware was a journey of many days. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. How circumspect, exact and proportionate were all their movements! There are exceptions, and I thank God that there are. Frederick Douglass Yea! Oration by Frederick Douglass, delivered on the occasion of the Copyright 2023 Interactive One, LLC. Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. Speech Transcribe your audio files to find high-impact insights in minutes. Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood and stained with pollution is wrong? Your fathers esteemed the English Government as the home government; and England as the fatherland. Frederick Douglass July Fourth Speech Full Text: Read 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. 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. What have I, or those I represent to do with your national independence. That is a branch of knowledge in which you feel, perhaps, a much deeper interest than your speaker. What to the Slave is the 4th of July? Speech Transcript by Frederick Douglass, Congressional Testimony & Hearing Transcripts. Do you mean citizens to mock me by asking me to speak today? speech The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. 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. What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible being? 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. 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. This Fourth [of] July isyours, notmine. be warned! Is it at the gateway? Go search where you will. These men were generally well dressed men, and very captivating in their manners. As the champions of oppressors, the chosen men of American theology have appeared men, honored for their so-called piety, and their real learning. He can bring no witnesses for himself. The slaveholders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. Great streams are not easily turned from channels, worn deep in the course of ages. But I fancy I hear some one of my audience say, it is just in this circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth. Section 107, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. I think that, in whatever else I may be deficient, I have Speech The iron shoe, and crippled foot of China must be seen, in contrast with nature. Many of its most eloquent Divines. Noble men may be found, scattered all over these Northern States, of whom Henry Ward Beecher of Brooklyn, Samuel J. Your President, your Secretary of State, ourlords,nobles, and ecclesiastics, enforce, as a duty you owe to your free and glorious country, and to your God, that you do this accursed thing. He rose from the shackles of slavery to become an author, newspaper publisher, and respected abolitionist. 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. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery. 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. 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. Let this damning fact be perpetually told. There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, who does not know that slavery is wrong for him. 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. Where these go, may also go the merciless slave-hunter. I have better employments for my time and strength than such arguments would imply. You live and must die, and you must do your work. I will show you a man-drover. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? Frederick Douglass, What to the Slave Is the Fourth On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? There, the question of emancipation was a high religious question. 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? Frederick Douglass: (09:38) 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. 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. Is it not astonishing that while we are plowing, planting and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metal of brass, iron, copper, silver, and gold, that while we are reading, writing, and ciphering acting as clerks, merchants, and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators, and teachers that we are engaged in all the enterprises, common to other men, digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific feeding sheep and cattle on the hillside, living, moving, acting, thinking, planting, living in families as husbands, wives, and children, and above all confessing and worshiping the Christian God and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave. whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. 1883 Speech by Frederick Douglass - accessible-archives.com Frederick Douglass speech - PBS 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. when ye make many prayers, I will not hear. My subject then, fellow citizens, is American slavery. The most accurate AI-powered transcription on the market. Is slavery among them? No nation can now shut itself up from the surrounding world, and trot round in the same old path of its fathers without interference. had I the ability, and could I reach the nations ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. It is the antagonistic force in your government, the only thing that seriously disturbs and endangers yourUnion. 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. They hate all changes, but silver, gold and copper change! I am not included within the pales of this glorious anniversary. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. 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. Cling to this day cling to it, and to its principles, with the grasp of a storm-tossed mariner to a spar at midnight. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak. Three score years and ten is the allotted time for individual men; but nations number their years by thousands. For 186 years this doctrine of national independence has shaken the globeand it remains the most powerful force anywhere in the world today. Industry-leading accurate legal transcription to ensure you dont miss a statement. WebOn January 9, 1894, at Washington, D.C.'s, Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church, Frederick Douglass delivered his "The Lessons of the Hour" speech, which addressed the But, your fathers, who had not adopted the fashionable idea of this day, of the infallibility of government, and the absolute character of its acts, presumed to differ from the home government in respect to the wisdom and the justice of some of those burdens and restraints. The fiat of the Almighty, Let there be Light, has not yet spent its force. 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. These wretched people are to be sold singly, or in lots, to suit purchasers. That bolt drawn, that chain broken, and all is lost. 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. I will not. I answer: a day that reveals to him more than all other days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. In a final celebratory post for Black History Month 2023, it is worth returning to the 1883 Douglass Banquet. All Rights Reserved. Space is comparatively annihilated. This, however, did not answer the purpose. 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.. You have already declared it. WebA speech celebrating both Lincoln and African Americans freedom wrought by Lincoln. By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. There is blasphemy in the thought. President John F. Kennedy On July 4, 1962 President John F. Kennedy delivered this speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Frederick Douglass: (06:03) And while slavery has long been abolished and outlawed, the sentiment behind the address still applies in many unfortunate ways when it comes to the overall Black experience in America. With them, justice, liberty and humanity were final; not slavery and oppression. Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? 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. 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. Neither steam nor lightning had then been reduced to order and discipline. 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. The right of the hunter to his prey stands superior to the right of marriage, and toallrights in this republic, the rights of God included! WATCH VIDEO: Should Black Americans Celebrate Independence Day? 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! Take the American slave-trade, which, we are told by the papers, is especially prosperous just now. Discover why Rev is the #1 speech-to-text service in the world. From the round top of your ship of state, dark and threatening clouds may be seen. 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 The flesh-mongers gather up their victims by dozens, and drive them, chained, to the general depot at Baltimore. To arrest it, to put an end to it, this nation keeps a squadron, at immense cost, on the coast of Africa. 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. Walled cities and empires have become unfashionable. Speech The feeling of the nation must be quickened. Who can reason on such a proposition? 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. To side with the right, against the wrong, with the weak against the strong, and with the oppressed against the oppressor! Frederick Douglass thought that such rationalizations were crap, and he had the right to think so. 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. You have already declared it. Feeling themselves harshly and unjustly treated by the home government, your fathers, like men of honesty, and men of spirit, earnestly sought redress. Your cause would be much more likely to succeed. The din of business, too, is hushed. The power is co-extensive with the Star-Spangled Banner and American Christianity. But I admit, where all is plain, there is nothing to be argued. What, to the American Slave, Is Your 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. Fellows citizens, pardon me and allow me to ask, why am I called to speak here today? Their conduct was wholly unexceptionable. See this drove sold and separated forever; and never forget the deep, sad sobs that arose from that scattered multitude. I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies. If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. Is that a question for Republicans? The charter of our liberties, which every citizen has a personal interest in understanding thoroughly. My subject, then fellow-citizens, is AMERICAN SLAVERY. It makes its pathway over and under the sea, as well as on the earth. The time for such argument is passed. Just here, the idea of a total separation of the colonies from the crown was born! I am not that man. How can we sing the Lords song in a strange land? Senator Berrien tell us that the Constitution is the fundamental law, that which controls all others. 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. For my part, I would say, welcome infidelity! 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. Frederick Douglass' Descendants Read His Famous 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. Your broad republican domain is hunting ground formen. 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? But, besides general considerations, there were peculiar circumstances which make the advent of this republic an event of special attractiveness. 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. He who will, intelligently, lay down his life for his country, is a man whom it is not in human nature to despise. Community Reading: Frederick Douglass's "What Add English on-screen subtitles for videos. You may rejoice, I must mourn.. Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has You could instruct me in regard to them. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the lame man leap as an hart.. 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. 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. The Bible addresses all such persons as scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, who pay tithe ofmint, anise,andcumin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith.. Your lawmakers have commanded all good citizens to engage in this hellish sport. Roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world. Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. WebThe Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro by Frederick Douglass. To all inspiring motives, to noble deeds which can be gained from the past, we are welcome. Extend your content reach and maximize your engagement rates. 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!