Frederick Douglass: (01:08) 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. By an act of the American Congress, not yet two years old, slavery has been nationalized in its most horrible and revolting form. They, however, gradually flow back to the same old channel, and flow on as serenely as ever. I will show you a man-drover. He who will, intelligently, lay down his life for his country, is a man whom it is not in human nature to despise. The manhood of the slave is conceded. Is a matter, the set with great difficulty involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard to understand? Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? At the time of the delivery of this speech, Douglass had been living in Rochester, New York for several years editing a weekly abolitionist newspaper. He was invited to give a fourth of July speech by the Ladies Anti-Slavery Society of Rochester. In the early 1850s, tensions over slavery were high across the county. They petitioned and remonstrated; they did so in a decorous, respectful, and loyal manner. For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. 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! Friends and citizens, I need not enter further into the causes which led to this anniversary. 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. Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who O! President John F. Kennedy On July 4, 1962 President John F. Kennedy delivered this speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This is esteemed by some as a national trait perhaps a national weakness. Transcript Descendants of Frederick Douglass read excerpts from one of his most famous speeches: What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? It saps the foundation of religion; it makes your name a hissing, and a bye-word to a mocking earth. There is blasphemy in the thought. From the slave prison to the ship, they are usually driven in the darkness of night; for since the antislavery agitation, a certain caution is observed. 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. 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? 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? From the Potomac to the Delaware was a journey of many days. The fate of many a slave has depended upon the turn of a single card; and many a child has been snatched from the arms of its mother by bargains arranged in a state of brutal drunkenness. Go search where you will. He rose from the shackles of slavery to become an author, newspaper publisher, and respected abolitionist. 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. speaking of it relatively, and positively, negatively, and affirmatively. Seventy-six years, though a good old age for a man, is but a mere speck in the life of a nation. The principles contained in that instrument are saving principles. Not for thieves and robbers, enemies of society, merely, but for men guilty of no crime. To say now that America was right, and England wrong, is exceedingly easy. 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 blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. And it would go hard with that politician who presumed to solicit the votes of the people without inscribing this motto on his banner. 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! As with rivers so with nations. The time was when such could be done. But, to proceed. What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible being? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. 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. WebOn July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass gave a keynote address at an Independence Day celebration and asked, What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? Douglass was a powerful 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. Fair use is permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. But I admit, where all is plain, there is nothing to be argued. WATCH VIDEO: Should Black Americans Celebrate Independence Day? It destroys your moral power abroad; it corrupts your politicians at home. 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. 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. Take the American slave-trade, which, we are told by the papers, is especially prosperous just now. WebFrederick Douglass speech What to a Slave is the Fourth of July effectively argues against slavery. His agents were sent into every town and county in Maryland, announcing their arrival, through the papers, and on flaming hand-bills, headed CASH FOR NEGROES. WebFrederick Douglass, July 5, 1852 INTRODUCTION (Exordium) 1. In a final celebratory post for Black History Month 2023, it is worth returning to the 1883 Douglass Banquet. You have no right to wear out and waste the hard-earned fame of your fathers to cover your indolence. The causes which led to the separation of the colonies from the British crown have never lacked for a tongue. Under Title 17 U.S.C. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.. Frederick Douglass's, What To the Slave Is the Fourth of You were under the British Crown. When a child, my soul was often pierced with a sense of its horrors. The population was weak and scattered, and the country a wilderness unsubdued. 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. This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. I am not that man. WebA speech celebrating both Lincoln and African Americans freedom wrought by Lincoln. Oceans no longer divide, but link nations together. You could instruct me in regard to them. Copyright 2023 Interactive One, LLC. How unlike the politicians of an hour! 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! A speech given at Rochester, New York, July 5, 1852 . 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. I will not equivocate. Yet they persevered. Try Rev and save time transcribing, captioning, and subtitling. On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. weeping, as she thinks of the mother from whom she has been torn! I do not remember ever to have appeared as a speaker before any assembly more shrinkingly, nor with greater distrust of my ability, than I do this day. I take this law to be one of the grossest infringements of Christian Liberty, and, if the churches and ministers of our country were not stupidly blind, or most wickedly indifferent, they, too, would so regard it. In a final celebratory post for Black History Month 2023, it is worth returning to the 1883 Douglass Banquet. Their solid manhood stands out the more as we contrast it with these degenerate times. Knowledge was then confined and enjoyed by the privileged few, and the multitude walked on in mental darkness. Who can reason on such a proposition? 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. 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. They succeeded; and to-day you reap the fruits of their success. 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. 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. The feeling of the nation must be quickened. 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. WebAn excerpt from the 1847 Frederick Douglass speech given for the anniversary of the American Anti-Slavery Society. This, however, did not answer the purpose. They showed forbearance; but that they knew its limits. 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. Of this fundamental work, this day is the anniversary. 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. But I fancy, I hear some of my audience say it is just in this circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression upon the public mind. 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. Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice embodied in that Declaration of Independence extended to us? For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. I take it, therefore, that it is not presumption in a private citizen to form an opinion of that instrument. 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! 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. Descendants of Frederick Douglass read excerpts from one of his most famous speeches: What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? During Cling to this day cling to it, and to its principles, with the grasp of a storm-tossed mariner to a spar at midnight. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. There are 72 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 these same crimes will subject a white man to like punishment. Douglass gave this speech to a group of abolitionists 168 years ago. They may also rise in wrath and fury, and bear away, on their angry waves, the accumulated wealth of years of toil and hardship. From Boston to London is now a holiday excursion. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? Frederick Douglass: (09:38) The minister of American justice is bound by the law to hear butoneside; andthatside, is the side of the oppressor. That people contented themselves under the shadow of Abrahams great name, while they repudiated the deeds which made his name great. 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. He mentions the fact to show that slavery is in no danger. Attend the auction; see men examined like horses; see the forms of women rudely and brutally exposed to the shocking gaze of American slave-buyers. To do so would be to make myself ridiculous and to offer an insult to your understanding. 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. These ministers make religion a cold and flinty-hearted thing, having neither principles of right action, nor bowels of compassion. 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. 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? And the conscience of the nation must be roused. Long established customs of hurtful character could formerly fence themselves in, and do their evil work with social impunity. For it is not light that is needed, but fire. Oppression makes a wise man mad. In several states, this trade is a chief source of wealth. Frederick Douglass: (03:37) be warned! It is neither. Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to those questions. There are exceptions, and I thank God that there are. your republican politics, not less than your republican religion, are flagrantly inconsistent. They did so in the form of a resolution; and as we seldom hit upon resolutions, drawn up in our day whose transparency is at all equal to this, it may refresh your minds and help my story if I read it.
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