But I admit, where all is plain, there is nothing to be argued. It is not the gentle shower, but thunder. But, besides general considerations, there were peculiar circumstances which make the advent of this republic an event of special attractiveness. 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. Standing here identified with the American bondsmen, making his wrongs mine. See, too, that girl of thirteen, weeping, yes! Douglass views the monument and the day's ceremonies as reflecting honor upon African They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. WebFrederick Douglass, July 5, 1852 INTRODUCTION (Exordium) 1. The sin of which it is guilty is one of omission as well as of commission. 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. Nations do not now stand in the same relation to each other that they did ages ago. WebThe Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro by Frederick Douglass. Our eyes are met with demonstrations of joyous enthusiasm. They showed forbearance; but that they knew its limits. In a final celebratory post for Black History Month 2023, it is worth returning to the 1883 Douglass Banquet. The minister of American justice is bound by the law to hear butoneside; andthatside, is the side of the oppressor. a horrible reptile is coiled up in your nations bosom; the venomous creature is nursing at the tender breast of your youthful republic;for the love of God, tear away, and fling from you the hideous monster, andlet the weight of twenty millions crush and destroy it forever! His death, according to Douglass was not only tragic, but also prevented recently freed slaves and African Americans from gaining the ear of wise and well-intentioned leader. 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. We need the storm. An American judge gets ten dollars for every victim he consigns to slavery, and five, when he fails to do so. It is a fact, that whatever makes for the wealth or for the reputation of Americans, and can be had cheap! Translated on-screen subtitles for videos. Fellow citizens, this murderous traffic is, today, in active operation in this boasted republic. speech I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the ring-bolt to the chain of your nations destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. 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. They were quiet men; but they did not shrink from agitating against oppression. there is no matter in respect to which, the people of the North have allowed themselves to be so ruinously imposed upon, as that of the pro-slavery character of the Constitution. Such a declaration of agreement on my part would not be worth much to anybody. Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? A worship that can be conducted by persons who refuse to give shelter to the houseless, to give bread to the hungry, clothing to the naked, and who enjoin obedience to a law forbidding these acts of mercy, is a curse, not a blessing to mankind. 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. You discourse eloquently on the dignity of labor; yet, you sustain a system which, in its very essence, casts a stigma upon labor. 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! 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 can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people! Travel through South America. The power is co-extensive with the Star-Spangled Banner and American Christianity. I have better employment for my time and strength than such arguments would imply. Your broad republican domain is hunting ground formen. 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. 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, . Descendants of Frederick Douglass read excerpts from one of his most famous speeches: What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost. This celebration also marks the beginning of another year of your national life; and reminds you that the Republic of America is now 76 years old. Your fathers staked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, on the cause of their country. 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. As with rivers so with nations. Noble men may be found, scattered all over these Northern States, of whom Henry Ward Beecher of Brooklyn, Samuel J. 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. You live and must die, and you must do your work. I will use the severest language I can command. I know that apologies of this sort are generally considered flat and unmeaning. But, to proceed. You declare, before the world, and are understood by the world to declare, that you hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal; and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; and that, among these are, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and yet, you hold securely, in a bondage which, according to your own Thomas Jefferson, is worse than ages of that which your fathers rose in rebellion to oppose, aseventh partof the inhabitants of your country. It has been denounced with burning words, from the high places of the nation, as an execrable traffic. As noted here, that banquet was attended by prominent Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, iswrong? 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. Extend your content reach and maximize your engagement rates. Frederick Douglass It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. Friends and citizens, I need not enter further into the causes which led to this anniversary. 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. Without this right, the liberty of an American citizen would be as insecure as that of a Frenchman. Frederick Douglass: (10:31) In speaking of the American church, however, let it be distinctly understood that I mean the great mass of the religious organizations of our land. They, however, gradually flow back to the same old channel, and flow on as serenely as ever. Behold the practical operation of this internal slave-trade, the American slave-trade, sustained by American politics and America religion. To arrest it, to put an end to it, this nation keeps a squadron, at immense cost, on the coast of Africa. There is blasphemy in the thought. Is it at the gateway? There is consolation in the thought that America is young. Is that a question for Republicans? The testimony of Senator Breese, Lewis Cass, and many others that might be named, who are everywhere esteemed as sound lawyers, so regard the constitution. here lies the merit, and the one which, of all others, seems unfashionable in our day. The greatest and best of British statesmen admitted its justice, and the loftiest eloquence of the British Senate came to its support. 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 speaking of it, relatively and positively, negatively and affirmatively? 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! Long established customs of hurtful character could formerly fence themselves in, and do their evil work with social impunity. Build with the best speech-to-text APIs around. But a still more inhuman, disgraceful, and scandalous state of things remains to be presented. This is a primary source reading analysis of Frederick Douglass' famous speech. 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. With little experience and with less learning, I have been able to throw my thoughts hastily and imperfectly together; and The papers and placards say, that I am to deliver a 4th [of] July oration. Fellow-citizens! From the round top of your ship of state, dark and threatening clouds may be seen. 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. when ye make many prayers, I will not hear. 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. Mark them! Then would my task be light and my burden easy and delightful? It is neither. No, I will not. There, the question of emancipation was a high religious question. And the lame man leap as an heart, but such is not the case. The timid and the prudent (as has been intimated) of that day, were, of course, shocked and alarmed by it. 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? You were under the British Crown. 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.. Everywhere, in this country, it is safe to speak of this foreign slave-trade, as a most inhuman traffic, opposed alike to the laws of God and of man.
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