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. I am not included within the pales of this glorious anniversary. From the Potomac to the Delaware was a journey of many days. 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. Fellow-citizens; above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! Frederick Douglass: (05:02) WebFrederick Douglass, July 5, 1852 INTRODUCTION (Exordium) 1. But neither their familiar faces, nor the perfect gage I think I have of Corinthian Hall, seems to free me from embarrassment. For 186 years this doctrine of national independence has shaken the globeand it remains the most powerful force anywhere in the world today. The greatest and best of British statesmen admitted its justice, and the loftiest eloquence of the British Senate came to its support. Oh! It esteems sacrifice above mercy; psalm-singing above right doing; solemn meetings above practical righteousness. Long established customs of hurtful character could formerly fence themselves in, and do their evil work with social impunity. Not for thieves and robbers, enemies of society, merely, but for men guilty of no crime. It fetters your progress; it is the enemy of improvement, the deadly foe of education; it fosters pride; it breeds insolence; it promotes vice; it shelters crime; it is a curse to the earth that supports it; and yet, you cling to it, as if it were the sheet anchor of all your hopes. They may also rise in wrath and fury, and bear away, on their angry waves, the accumulated wealth of years of toil and hardship. Oh, had I, the ability, and could I reach the nations ear, I would today pour out a fiery steam of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. The Sharps, the Clarksons, the Wilberforces, the Buxtons, and Burchells and the Knibbs, were alike famous for their piety, and for their philanthropy. we wept when we remembered Zion. Fellow-citizens! To him, your celebration is a sham, your boasted Liberty, an unholy license, your national greatness, swelling vanity. He who will, intelligently, lay down his life for his country, is a man whom it is not in human nature to despise. With little experience and with less learning, I have been able to throw my thoughts hastily and imperfectly together; and I am glad, fellow-citizens, that your nation is so young. That bolt drawn, that chain broken, and all is lost. These rules are well established. Frederick Douglass: (00:26) Fair use is permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. You have no right to wear out and waste the hard-earned fame of your fathers to cover your indolence. Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. Fellow citizens, above your national tumultuous joy I hear the mournful wail of millions whose chains heavy and grievous yesterday are today rendered more intolerable by the jubilant shouts that reach them. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, not by me. When a child, my soul was often pierced with a sense of its horrors. This 4th of July is yours, not mine. There, the question of emancipation was a high religious question. In the summer of 2020, the U.S. commemorated Independence Day amid nationwide There, the church, true to its mission of ameliorating, elevating, and improving the condition of mankind, came forward promptly, bound up the wounds of the West Indian slave, and restored him to his liberty. Nobody doubts it. Fellow-citizens! 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 By that most foul and fiendish of all human decrees, the liberty and person of every man are put in peril. Should I seem at ease, my appearance would much misrepresent me. The sin of which it is guilty is one of omission as well as of commission. 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. You discourse eloquently on the dignity of labor; yet, you sustain a system which, in its very essence, casts a stigma upon labor. 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. 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. 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. Africa must rise and put on her yet unwoven garment. There are exceptions, and I thank God that there are. His own testimony is nothing. Knowledge was then confined and enjoyed by the privileged few, and the multitude walked on in mental darkness. It is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. Their solid manhood stands out the more as we contrast it with these degenerate times. The questions are designed to provoke thought and guide the students through the document. 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! They who did so were accounted in their day, plotters of mischief, agitators and rebels, dangerous men. They were not the men to look back. 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 It makes its pathway over and under the sea, as well as on the earth. The population was weak and scattered, and the country a wilderness unsubdued. 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. Neither steam nor lightning had then been reduced to order and discipline. It is not the gentle shower, but thunder. The oath of any two villains is sufficient, under this hell-black enactment, to send the most pious and exemplary black man into the remorseless jaws of slavery! 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. 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! Three score years and ten is the allotted time for individual men; but nations number their years by thousands. O! Follow the drove to New Orleans. Yea! And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation Babylon, whose crimes towering up to heaven with thrown down by the breadth of the almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin. Would you persuade more and rebuke less? Everybody can say it; the dastard, not less than the noble brave, can flippantly discant on the tyranny of England towards the American Colonies. Of this sort of change they are always strongly in favor. Frederick Douglass: (02:13) Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? At a time like this, scorching irony not convincing argument is needed. To arrest it, to put an end to it, this nation keeps a squadron, at immense cost, on the coast of Africa. The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong city. President John F. Kennedy On July 4, 1962 President John F. Kennedy delivered this speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I will not excuse. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. Frederick Douglass thought that such rationalizations were crap, and he had the right to think so. You have already declared it. The country was poor in the munitions of war. 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. As the sheet anchor takes a firmer hold, when the ship is tossed by the storm, so did the cause of your fathers grow stronger, as it breasted the chilling blasts of kingly displeasure. WebFrederick Douglass, Fifth of July speech (1852) O! 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! But a change has now come over the affairs of mankind. I know that apologies of this sort are generally considered flat and unmeaning. What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible being? They saw themselves treated with sovereign indifference, coldness and scorn. 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. Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? The fact that the church of our country, (with fractional exceptions), does not esteem the Fugitive Slave Law as a declaration of war against religious liberty, implies that that church regards religion simply as a form of worship, an empty ceremony, andnota vital principle, requiring active benevolence, justice, love and good will towards man. In glaring violation of justice, in shameless disregard of the forms of administering law, in cunning arrangement to entrap the defenseless, and in diabolical intent, this Fugitive Slave Law stands alone in the annals of tyrannical legislation. What to the American slave is your 4th of July? weeping, as she thinks of the mother from whom she has been torn! Thu 5 Jul 2018 07.00 EDT Last modified on Wed 24 Jul 2019 11.58 EDT. Senator Berrien tell us that the Constitution is the fundamental law, that which controls all others. All Rights Reserved. I am not that man. 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. How unlike the politicians of an hour! I will not. My soul sickens at the sight. Seventy-six years, though a good old age for a man, is but a mere speck in the life of a nation. I shall see, this day, and its popular characteristics, from the slaves point of view. Douglass views the monument and the day's ceremonies as reflecting honor upon African 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! Frederick Douglass: (06:44) The Celestial Empire, the mystery of ages, is being solved. 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. This, however, did not answer the purpose. I have better employment for my time and strength than such arguments would imply. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery. Now, take the Constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. In the language of Isaiah, the American church might be well addressed, Bring no more vain ablations; incense is an abomination unto me: the new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity even the solemn meeting. This home government, you know, although a considerable distance from your home, did, in the exercise of its parental prerogatives, impose upon its colonial children, such restraints, burdens and limitations, as, in its mature judgment, it deemed wise, right and proper. Heat and sorrow have nearly consumed their strength; suddenly you hear a quick snap, like the discharge of a rifle; the fetters clank, and the chain rattles simultaneously; your ears are saluted with a scream, that seems to have torn its way to the center of your soul! The time for such argument is past. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. 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. They that can, may; I cannot. Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? Your broad republican domain is hunting ground formen. 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. WebDescription. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Fellow citizens, this murderous traffic is, today, in active operation in this boasted republic. 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. One is struck with the difference between the attitude of the American church towards the anti-slavery movement, and that occupied by the churches in England towards a similar movement in that country. What then remains to be argued? What? The most accurate AI-powered transcription on the market. 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. You live and must die, and you must do your work. For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. 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. I trust, however, that mine will not be so considered. I take it, therefore, that it is not presumption in a private citizen to form an opinion of that instrument. Your lawmakers have commanded all good citizens to engage in this hellish sport. They, however, gradually flow back to the same old channel, and flow on as serenely as ever. I scarcely need say, fellow-citizens, that my opinion of those measures fully accords with that of your fathers. WebFrederick Douglass speech What to a Slave is the Fourth of July effectively argues against slavery. Were the nation older, the patriots heart might be sadder, and the reformers brow heavier. Frederick Douglass: (10:31) Take the American slave-trade, which, we are told by the papers, is especially prosperous just now. They were great men too great enough to give fame to a great age. This trade is one of the peculiarities of American institutions. 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.. All Rights Reserved. Frederick Douglass: (07:35) This is the inevitable conclusion, and from it there is no escape. will be found by Americans. I am not that man. Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! For black men there are neither law, justice, humanity, not religion. Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? 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? For who is there so cold that a nation sympathy cannot warm him, who so adore it and dead to the claims of gratitude that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Noble men may be found, scattered all over these Northern States, of whom Henry Ward Beecher of Brooklyn, Samuel J. But I admit, where all is plain, there is nothing to be argued. Of this fundamental work, this day is the anniversary. WebThe Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro by Frederick Douglass. That point is conceded already. 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! No! Citizens, your fathers made good that resolution. America is false to the past, false to the present and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? 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. Resolved, That these united colonies are, and of right, ought to be free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown; and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, dissolved.. But, while the river may not be turned aside, it may dry up, and leave nothing behind but the withered branch, and the unsightly rock, to howl in the abyss-sweeping wind, the sad tale of departed glory. 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. The papers and placards say, that I am to deliver a 4th [of] July oration. WebFrederick Douglass, July 5, 1852 INTRODUCTION (Exordium) 1. I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies. On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? WebAn excerpt from the 1847 Frederick Douglass speech given for the anniversary of the American Anti-Slavery Society. 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? Copyright 2023 Interactive One, LLC. 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. What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? The crack you heard, was the sound of the slave-whip; the scream you heard, was from the woman you saw with the babe. Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? We need the storm. The charter of our liberties, which every citizen has a personal interest in understanding thoroughly. Like our content? The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. There is not a nation of the earth, guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody than are the people of these United States at this very hour. Under Title 17 U.S.C. here lies the merit, and the one which, of all others, seems unfashionable in our day. An American judge gets ten dollars for every victim he consigns to slavery, and five, when he fails to do so. speaking of it relatively, and positively, negatively, and affirmatively. Their conduct was wholly unexceptionable. But the church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of the slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors. I will show you a man-drover. That I am here to-day is, to me, a matter of astonishment as well as of gratitude. Frederick Douglass: (04:09) This truth is not a doubtful one. The cause of liberty may be stabbed by the men who glory in the deeds of your fathers. I repeat, I am glad this is so. 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. 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. I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people! 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. 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. I was born amid such sights and scenes. The causes which led to the separation of the colonies from the British crown have never lacked for a tongue. WebA speech celebrating both Lincoln and African Americans freedom wrought by Lincoln. With little experience and with less learning, I have been able to throw my thoughts hastily and imperfectly together; and trusting to your patient and generous indulgence, I will proceed to lay them before you. Would you argue more, and denounce less, would you persuade more, and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed. They are food for the cotton-field, and the deadly sugar-mill. 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. I will use the severest language I can command. 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 and write. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. It destroys your moral power abroad; it corrupts your politicians at home. The population of the country, at the time, stood at the insignificant number of three millions. These wretched people are to be sold singly, or in lots, to suit purchasers. 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. But, besides general considerations, there were peculiar circumstances which make the advent of this republic an event of special attractiveness.
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