Now, take the Constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. 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. 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.
What, to the American Slave, Is Your I cannot. The time for such argument is passed. we wept when we remembered Zion. Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to those questions. WebFrederick Douglass speech What to a Slave is the Fourth of July effectively argues against slavery. Under Title 17 U.S.C. 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. Is it that slavery is not divine, that God did not establish it, that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? Walled cities and empires have become unfashionable. 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. 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. The cause of liberty may be stabbed by the men who glory in the deeds of your fathers. With head, and heart, and hand Ill strive, 8 Times Obama Showed Trump How Presidents Are Supposed To Celebrate The Fourth Of July, Welcome To The Cookout: 10 Lit Movies To Watch During July Fourth Holiday Weekend, 'Dilbert' Comic Creator Calls Black People A 'Hate Group,' Urges Segregation So Whites Can 'Escape', Bernie Mac Show Star Camille Winbush Is Not Ashamed Of Joining OnlyFans, Kyle Rittenhouse Faces 2nd Civil Lawsuit, Continues To Beg For Money From His Supporters, Ben Stein's 'Aunt Jemima' Rant Is A Master Class On White Privilege, Why Did tWitch Kill Himself? Washington could not die till he had broken the chains of his slaves. Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, iswrong? What was possible for him, he sincerely believed was possible for any man who was willing to work hard. We need the storm. At the very moment that they are thanking God for the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty, and for the right to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences, they are utterly silent in respect to a law which robs religion of its chief significance, and makes it utterly worthless to a world lying in wickedness.
Frederick Douglass You have already declared it. Of this sort of change they are always strongly in favor.
The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro by Frederick Douglass Some of these have had wives and children, dependent on them for bread; but of this, no account was made. 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. 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. It destroys your moral power abroad; it corrupts your politicians at home. No abuse, no outrage whether in taste, sport or avarice, can now hide itself from the all-pervading light. How unlike the politicians of an hour! 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. During Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetual remembrance. These wretched people are to be sold singly, or in lots, to suit purchasers. I take it, therefore, that it is not presumption in a private citizen to form an opinion of that instrument. Born to an enslaved family in 1818, Frederick Douglass never knew his actual birthday, a fact not uncommon for those enslaved.
To me the American slave-trade is a terrible reality. Their statesmanship looked beyond the passing moment, and stretched away in strength into the distant future. There I see the tenderest ties ruthlessly broken, to gratify the lust, caprice and rapacity of the buyers and sellers of men. The duty to extirpate and destroy it, is admitted even by our DOCTORS OF DIVINITY. They were not the men to look back. 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. Frederick Douglass's, What To the Slave Is the Fourth of In a final celebratory post for Black History Month 2023, it is worth returning to the 1883 Douglass Banquet. The population was weak and scattered, and the country a wilderness unsubdued. Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) was a social reformer and advocate, abolitionist, orator, writer, minister, and statesman. 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 time was when such could be done. who stand as the very lights of the church, have shamelessly given the sanction of religion and the Bible to the whole slave system.
"What to the Slave is the 4th of July?" Speech Transcript For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. You may rejoice. Read the full text below of the sage words from one of the greatest orators of all time. VIDEO: Frederick Douglass' descendants deliver his 'Fourth of July' speech. As noted here, that banquet was attended by prominent Our eyes are met with demonstrations of joyous enthusiasm. 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? 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? To arrest it, to put an end to it, this nation keeps a squadron, at immense cost, on the coast of Africa. I remember, also, that, as a people, Americans are remarkably familiar with all facts which make in their own favor. I scout the idea that the question of the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of slavery is not a question for the people. 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? 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. The country was poor in the munitions of war. They were great in their day and generation. Yet they persevered. He mentions the fact to show that slavery is in no danger. I must mourn. 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. Let the religious press, the pulpit, the Sunday school, the conference meeting, the great ecclesiastical, missionary, Bible and tract associations of the land array their immense powers against slavery and slave-holding; and the whole system of crime and blood would be scattered to the winds; and that they do not do this involves them in the most awful responsibility of which the mind can conceive. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak. 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. 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! I will not equivocate; I will not excuse; I will use the severest language I can command; 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.
Frederick Douglass This Fourth [of] July isyours, notmine. 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. I will show you a man-drover. There, see the old man, with locks thinned and gray. Your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless, your shouts of Liberty and equality, hallow mocked, your prayers and hymns your sermons and Thanksgivings with all your religious parade in solemnity are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, a thin veil to cover up crimes, which would disgrace a nation of savages. Fair use is permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Translated on-screen subtitles for videos. Frederick Douglass: (00:26) 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. 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. But a still more inhuman, disgraceful, and scandalous state of things remains to be presented. Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? Yet this is but a glance at the American slave-trade, as it exists, at this moment, in the ruling part of the United States. Oh! 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.
Speech 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. Feeling themselves harshly and unjustly treated by the home government, your fathers, like men of honesty, and men of spirit, earnestly sought redress. Neither steam nor lightning had then been reduced to order and discipline. It is the antagonistic force in your government, the only thing that seriously disturbs and endangers yourUnion. The Sharps, the Clarksons, the Wilberforces, the Buxtons, and Burchells and the Knibbs, were alike famous for their piety, and for their philanthropy. Such a declaration of agreement on my part would not be worth much to anybody. That bolt drawn, that chain broken, and all is lost. What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Three score years and ten is the allotted time for individual men; but nations number their years by thousands. 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. weeping, as she thinks of the mother from whom she has been torn! I will not. Tell me citizens, WHERE, under the sun, you can witness a spectacle more fiendish and shocking. The Fugitive SlaveLawmakes mercy to them a crime; and bribes the judge who tries them. They strip the love of God of its beauty, and leave the throng of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form. An American judge gets ten dollars for every victim he consigns to slavery, and five, when he fails to do so. To side with the right, against the wrong, with the weak against the strong, and with the oppressed against the oppressor! Its quite a remarkable speech as Douglass in a way reenacts his own journey in appreciation for the work that Lincoln did, not just for blacks, but for whites in this country. The style and title of your sovereign people (in which you now glory) was not then born. Who so stolid and selfish that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nations Jubilee when the chains of servitude have been torn from his limbs? It was a startling idea, much more so, than we, at this distance of time, regard it. I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies. If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. 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. The sin of which it is guilty is one of omission as well as of commission. And it would go hard with that politician who presumed to solicit the votes of the people without inscribing this motto on his banner. As the champions of oppressors, the chosen men of American theology have appeared men, honored for their so-called piety, and their real learning. Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. It is neither. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? It has made itself the bulwark of American slavery, and the shield of American slave-hunters. President John F. Kennedy On July 4, 1962 President John F. Kennedy delivered this speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 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? It is called (in contradistinction to the foreign slave-trade) the internal slave trade. It is, probably, called so, too, in order to divert from it the horror with which the foreign slave-trade is contemplated. He is a bird for the sportsmans gun. The madness of this course, we believe, is admitted now, even by England; but we fear the lesson is wholly lost on our present ruler. These rules are well established. 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. What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? You have no right to wear out and waste the hard-earned fame of your fathers to cover your indolence. We thank you for taking the time to watch this community reading of Frederick Douglasss What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? Source: Blight, David. 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. The blessings in which you this day rejoice are not enjoyed in common. Would you persuade more and rebuke less? Fellow-citizens; above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! here lies the merit, and the one which, of all others, seems unfashionable in our day.
Frederick Douglass They succeeded; and to-day you reap the fruits of their success. You have no right to enjoy a childs share in the labor of your fathers, unless your children are to be blest by your labors. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Web" was a speech delivered by Frederick Douglass on July 5, 1852, at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York, at a meeting organized by the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery But I differ from those who charge this baseness on the framers of the Constitution of the United States. May he not hope that high lessons of wisdom, of justice and of truth, will yet give direction to her destiny? But, with that blindness which seems to be the unvarying characteristic of tyrants, since Pharaoh and his hosts were drowned in the Red Sea, the British Government persisted in the exactions complained of. My subject, then fellow-citizens, is AMERICAN SLAVERY. Frederick Douglass: (06:03) 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 4th of July is the first great fact in your nations history the very ring-bolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. WebDescription. 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.
A Nation's Story: What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? My soul sickens at the sight. 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. But I admit, where all is plain, there is nothing to be argued. The minister of American justice is bound by the law to hear butoneside; andthatside, is the side of the oppressor.
Speech Roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world. May of Syracuse, and my esteemed friend (Rev. Extend your content reach and maximize your engagement rates. To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs and to chime in with the popular theme would be treason most sacrilegious and shocking and would make me a reproach before God and the world. To say now that America was right, and England wrong, is exceedingly easy. I know that apologies of this sort are generally considered flat and unmeaning. For it is not light that is needed, but fire. Frederick Douglass, circa 1879. Difference between Rittenhouse and McMichael-Bryan verdicts? Frederick Douglass delivered his famous speech What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? in 1852, drawing parallels between the Revolutionary War and the fight to abolish slavery. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery. will be found by Americans.
Frederick Douglass 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 I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. Senator Berrien tell us that the Constitution is the fundamental law, that which controls all others. What? 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. My spirit wearies of such blasphemy; and how such men can be supported, as the standing types and representatives of Jesus Christ, is a mystery which I leave others to penetrate. WebCelebrating 200 years of Frederick Douglass.
"The Lessons of the Hour" Speech by Frederick Douglass The manhood of the slave is conceded. Douglass gave this speech to a group of abolitionists 168 years ago. 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. He can bring no witnesses for himself. The slave holders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. They are food for the cotton-field, and the deadly sugar-mill. Even Mammon seems to have quitted his grasp on this day. Heavy billows, like mountains in the distance, disclose to the leeward huge forms of flinty rocks! Now, there are certain rules of interpretation, for the proper understanding of all legal instruments. We are called upon to prove that we are men. 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!