be warned! 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. It is admitted in the fact that Southern statute books are covered with enactments forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, the teaching of the slave to read or to write. 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. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Hear his savage yells and his blood-chilling oaths, as he hurries on his affrighted captives! The cause of liberty may be stabbed by the men who glory in the deeds of your fathers. 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. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? What have I, or those I represent to do with your national independence. Your broad republican domain is hunting ground formen. 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. Your fathers were wise men, and if they did not go mad, they became restive under this treatment. 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. 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. will be found by Americans. 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? "What to the Slave is the 4th of July?" 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. But, besides general considerations, there were peculiar circumstances which make the advent of this republic an event of special attractiveness. You may rejoice, I must mourn.. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.. 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, WebFrederick Douglass speech What to a Slave is the Fourth of July effectively argues against slavery. I take it, therefore, that it is not presumption in a private citizen to form an opinion of that instrument. Were the nation older, the patriots heart might be sadder, and the reformers brow heavier. From the round top of your ship of state, dark and threatening clouds may be seen. WebDescription. My subject then, fellow citizens, is American slavery. They showed forbearance; but that they knew its limits. The manhood of the slave is conceded. 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. They saw themselves treated with sovereign indifference, coldness and scorn. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. 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. Such a declaration of agreement on my part would not be worth much to anybody. Noble men may be found, scattered all over these Northern States, of whom Henry Ward Beecher of Brooklyn, Samuel J. If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. The crack you heard, was the sound of the slave-whip; the scream you heard, was from the woman you saw with the babe. WebFrederick Douglass, July 5, 1852 INTRODUCTION (Exordium) 1. There is hope in the thought, and hope is much needed, under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon. Many of you understand them better than I do. 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.. What, then, remains to be argued? They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. 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, . On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? Like our content? 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. It was demanded, in the name of humanity, and according to the law of the living God. Just here, the idea of a total separation of the colonies from the crown was born! One of the parts of the speech that resonates with me the most is when Douglass says: What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? Frederick Douglass thought that such rationalizations were crap, and he had the right to think so. The hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed and its crimes against God and man must be denounced. 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). His own testimony is nothing. This certainly sounds large, and out of the common way, for it is true that I have often had the privilege to speak in this beautiful Hall, and to address many who now honor me with their presence. The simple story of it is that, 76 years ago, the people of this country were British subjects. Build with the best speech-to-text APIs around. For it is not light that is needed, but fire. The whole scene, as I look back to it, was simple, dignified and sublime. Would you argue more, and denounce less, would you persuade more, and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed. To arrest it, to put an end to it, this nation keeps a squadron, at immense cost, on the coast of Africa. That point is conceded already. The message of Frederick Douglasss 1852 speech on the contradiction of Americas just ideals and unjust realities endures. The sin of which it is guilty is one of omission as well as of commission. Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to those questions. 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. 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. But I admit, where all is plain, there is nothing to be argued. 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. The little experience I have had in addressing public meetings, in country schoolhouses, avails me nothing on the present occasion. Douglass views the monument and the day's ceremonies as reflecting honor upon African Everybody can say it; the dastard, not less than the noble brave, can flippantly discant on the tyranny of England towards the American Colonies. To side with the right, against the wrong, with the weak against the strong, and with the oppressed against the oppressor! Long established customs of hurtful character could formerly fence themselves in, and do their evil work with social impunity. For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. Your cause would be much more likely to succeed. I will not. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. 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. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? 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. A speech given at Rochester, New York, July 5, 1852 . Am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to Rob them of their Liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with ions, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? Discover why Rev is the #1 speech-to-text service in the world. He rose from the shackles of slavery to become an author, newspaper publisher, and respected abolitionist. Follow the drove to New Orleans. Frederick Douglass: (10:31) During 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 text of Frederick Douglasss most famous speech, given in 1852, What, to a slave, is the Fourth of July? A chapter describing Douglasss early encounters with abolitionists, from his autobiography My Bondage and My Freedom, 1857. I have detained my audience entirely too long already. We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future. You have already declared it.