Frederick Douglass July Fourth Speech Full Text: Read I scout the idea that the question of the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of slavery is not a question for the people. 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.. 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. They were quiet men; but they did not shrink from agitating against oppression. They showed forbearance; but that they knew its limits. Under Title 17 U.S.C. Frederick Douglass speech While drawing encouragement from the Declaration of Independence, the great principles it contains, and the genius of American Institutions, my spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost. My business, if I have any here today, is with the present. welcome anything! 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. When a child, my soul was often pierced with a sense of its horrors. America is false to the past, false to the present and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. 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. It esteems sacrifice above mercy; psalm-singing above right doing; solemn meetings above practical righteousness. Tell me citizens, WHERE, under the sun, you can witness a spectacle more fiendish and shocking. But now is the time, the important time. Your fathers staked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, on the cause of their country. 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. I leave, therefore, the great deeds of your fathers to other gentlemen whose claim to have been regularly descended will be less likely to be disputed than mine! They perambulate the country, and crowd the highways of the nation, with droves of human stock. 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. Yea! Where these go, may also go the merciless slave-hunter. Many of you understand them better than I do. With them, nothing was settled that was not right. But a still more inhuman, disgraceful, and scandalous state of things remains to be presented. The message of Frederick Douglasss 1852 speech on the contradiction of Americas just ideals and unjust realities endures. 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. That year will come, and freedoms reign. Under these, and innumerable other disadvantages, your fathers declared for liberty and independence and triumphed. Extend your content reach and maximize your engagement rates. You invite to your shores fugitives of oppression from abroad, honor them with banquets, greet them with ovations, cheer them, toast them, salute them, protect them, and pour out your money to them like water; but the fugitives from your own land you advertise, hunt, arrest, shoot and kill. Three score years and ten is the allotted time for individual men; but nations number their years by thousands. be warned! All this we affirm to be true of the popular church, and the popular worship of our land and nation a religion, a church, and a worship which, on the authority of inspired wisdom, we pronounce to be an abomination in the sight of God. The slaveholders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. That is a branch of knowledge in which you feel, perhaps, a much deeper interest than your speaker. 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. He further says, the Constitution, in its words, is plain and intelligible, and is meant for the home-bred, unsophisticated understandings of our fellow-citizens. You will not, therefore, be surprised, if in what I have to say I evince no elaborate preparation, nor grace my speech with any high sounding exordium. The Bible addresses all such persons as scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, who pay tithe ofmint, anise,andcumin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith.. At some future period I will gladly avail myself of an opportunity to give this subject a full and fair discussion. WebFrederick Douglass, Fifth of July speech (1852) O! I will show you a man-drover. 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. Frederick Douglass: (10:31) 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. Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has 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. The fact is, ladies and gentlemen, the distance between this platform and the slave plantation, from which I escaped, is considerable and the difficulties to be overcome in getting from the latter to the former, are by no means slight. You have no right to wear out and waste the hard-earned fame of your fathers to cover your indolence. I have better employment for my time and strength than such arguments would imply. I scarcely need say, fellow-citizens, that my opinion of those measures fully accords with that of your fathers. 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. 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. VIDEO: Frederick Douglass' descendants deliver his 'Fourth of July' No, I will not. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. From the Potomac to the Delaware was a journey of many days. Of this fundamental work, this day is the anniversary. in preference to the gospel,as preached by those Divines! It makes its pathway over and under the sea, as well as on the earth. According to this fact, you are, even now, only in the beginning of your national career, still lingering in the period of childhood. Fellow-citizens! 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? Great streams are not easily turned from channels, worn deep in the course of ages. It saps the foundation of religion; it makes your name a hissing, and a bye-word to a mocking earth. They, however, gradually flow back to the same old channel, and flow on as serenely as ever. All Rights Reserved. Who so stolid and selfish, that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nations jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? The papers and placards say, that I am to deliver a 4th [of] July oration. Transcribe your audio files to find high-impact insights in minutes. 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! Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country. Our Composite Nation: Frederick Douglass America Frederick Douglass thought that such rationalizations were crap, and he had the right to think so. 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! Frederick Douglass: (05:02) Frederick Douglass: (08:30) I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slaves point of view. Translated on-screen subtitles for videos. The iron shoe, and crippled foot of China must be seen, in contrast with nature. I shall see, this day, and its popular characteristics, from the slaves point of view. To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding. What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible being? There are illustrations of it near and remote, ancient and modern. He can bring no witnesses for himself. It has made itself the bulwark of American slavery, and the shield of American slave-hunters. your republican politics, not less than your republican religion, are flagrantly inconsistent. Is it not astonishing that while we are plowing, planting and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metal of brass, iron, copper, silver, and gold, that while we are reading, writing, and ciphering acting as clerks, merchants, and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators, and teachers that we are engaged in all the enterprises, common to other men, digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific feeding sheep and cattle on the hillside, living, moving, acting, thinking, planting, living in families as husbands, wives, and children, and above all confessing and worshiping the Christian God and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. A general shout would go up from the church, demanding repeal, repeal, instant repeal! Thoughts expressed on one side of the Atlantic, are distinctly heard on the other. 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. The accepted time with God and his cause is the ever-living now. But, to proceed. Your fathers were wise men, and if they did not go mad, they became restive under this treatment. To me the American slave-trade is a terrible reality. Speech 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. Should I seem at ease, my appearance would much misrepresent me. As with rivers so with nations. They felt themselves the victims of grievous wrongs, wholly incurable in their colonial capacity. The ear-piercing fife and the stirring drum unite their accents with the ascending peal of a thousand church bells. 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. What to the American slave is your 4th of July? Frederick Douglass: (04:09) 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. 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? May he not hope that high lessons of wisdom, of justice and of truth, will yet give direction to her destiny? Frederick Douglass: (03:37) Community Reading: Frederick Douglass's "What Its the news, without the news. But I admit, where all is plain, there is nothing to be argued. 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 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. Her speed had faltered under the weight of her child and her chains! The far off and almost fabulous Pacific rolls in grandeur at our feet. The slave holders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. Sign up for NewsOne's email newsletter! The Celestial Empire, the mystery of ages, is being solved. Now, take the Constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. 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.. I have better employments for my time and strength than such arguments would imply. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? 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 speech - PBS 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. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.. The country was poor in the munitions of war. For it is not light that is needed, but fire. Add English on-screen subtitles for videos. It has been denounced with burning words, from the high places of the nation, as an execrable traffic. On the other hand it will be found to contain principles and purposes, entirely hostile to the existence of slavery. In a final celebratory post for Black History Month 2023, it is worth returning to the 1883 Douglass Banquet. Try Rev and save time transcribing, captioning, and subtitling. But, such is not the state of the case. He who will, intelligently, lay down his life for his country, is a man whom it is not in human nature to despise. There I see the tenderest ties ruthlessly broken, to gratify the lust, caprice and rapacity of the buyers and sellers of men. 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. Noble men may be found, scattered all over these Northern States, of whom Henry Ward Beecher of Brooklyn, Samuel J. 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. 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. Who can reason on such a proposition? All Rights Reserved. They seized upon eternal principles, and set a glorious example in their defense. Frederick Douglass 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? Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? The causes which led to the separation of the colonies from the British crown have never lacked for a tongue. 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. Would you persuade more and rebuke less? that it should be so; yet so it is. He is a bird for the sportsmans gun. 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. will be found by Americans. WebFrederick Douglass speech What to a Slave is the Fourth of July effectively argues against slavery. The style and title of your sovereign people (in which you now glory) was not then born. Cling to this day cling to it, and to its principles, with the grasp of a storm-tossed mariner to a spar at midnight. WebA speech celebrating both Lincoln and African Americans freedom wrought by Lincoln. You discourse eloquently on the dignity of labor; yet, you sustain a system which, in its very essence, casts a stigma upon labor. 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? Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, iswrong? What, then, remains to be argued? 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! 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. Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to those questions. Your fathers have lived, died, and have done their work, and have done much of it well. 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, the question of emancipation was a high religious question. Their solid manhood stands out the more as we contrast it with these degenerate times. I will use the severest language I can command. Mark the sad procession, as it moves wearily along, and the inhuman wretch who drives them. From the round top of your ship of state, dark and threatening clouds may be seen. There is blasphemy in the thought. These ministers make religion a cold and flinty-hearted thing, having neither principles of right action, nor bowels of compassion. If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. WebCelebrating 200 years of Frederick Douglass. Frederick Douglass 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! speaking of it relatively, and positively, negatively, and affirmatively. There is hope in the thought, and hope is much needed, under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon. Their statesmanship looked beyond the passing moment, and stretched away in strength into the distant future. I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the ring-bolt to the chain of your nations destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. See this drove sold and separated forever; and never forget the deep, sad sobs that arose from that scattered multitude. You may rejoice, I must mourn.. I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people! These people were called Tories in the days of your fathers; and the appellation, probably, conveyed the same idea that is meant by a more modern, though a somewhat less euphonious term, which we often find in our papers, applied to some of our old politicians. Such a declaration of agreement on my part would not be worth much to anybody. Its future might be shrouded in gloom, and the hope of its prophets go out in sorrow. The hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed and its crimes against God and man must be denounced. With brave men there is always a remedy for oppression. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? WebIn December 1860, the great American orator and former slave Frederick Douglass delivered one of his finest speeches, A Plea for Free Speech in Boston. In it, he boldly declared that liberty is meaningless where the right to utter ones thoughts and The time was when such could be done. Your lawmakers have commanded all good citizens to engage in this hellish sport. These men were generally well dressed men, and very captivating in their manners. 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. Feeling themselves harshly and unjustly treated by the home government, your fathers, like men of honesty, and men of spirit, earnestly sought redress.
Steve Gordon Dmv Email Address, Lebanese Surnames In Australia, New Orleans Civil Sheriff Real Estate Auction, Nvidia Quadro 6000 6gb Hashrate Ethereum, Red Golden Retriever Puppies Michigan, Articles F