Americans! The minister of American justice is bound by the law to hear but one side; and that side, is the side of the oppressor. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. 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. May of Syracuse, and my esteemed friend (Rev. 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. that he is the rightful owner of his own body? In spite of his praise of the Founding Fathers, he maintains that slaves owe nothing to and have no positive feelings towards the founding of the United States. the feeling of despair in the face of obstacles. These men were generally well dressed men, and very captivating in their manners. Not fewer than forty Americans have, within the past two years, been hunted down and, without a moments warning, hurried away in chains, and consigned to slavery and excruciating torture. 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. I have better employments for my time and strength than such arguments would imply.What, then, remains to be argued? Read its preamble, consider its purposes. He wrote a glowing letter of encouragement to Harriet Tubman, which served as the preface to Sarah Bradfords 1869 biography about Tubmans life. 5.0. One small step toward understanding gravity, Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is. My subject, then fellow-citizens, is AMERICAN SLAVERY. 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. 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! In the second part of the speech, Douglass turns to the present and his own feelings about the 4th of July . I scout the idea that the question of the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of slavery is not a question for the people. [4], The speech "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" Great Britain, and many other countries of that time, had already abolished slavery from its territories. in preference to the gospel, as preached by those Divines! 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. The well-known speech was previously known as The Meaning of July the Fourth for the Negro. Later, the speech was re-titled based on Douglasss question, What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?. This is the inevitable conclusion, and from it there is no escape. 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! Products. You are all on fire at the mention of liberty for France or for Ireland; but are as cold as an iceberg at the thought of liberty for the enslaved of America. 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! that gash on her shoulder tells her to move on. He implored the Rochester, N.Y., audience to think about the ongoing oppression of Black Americans during a holiday celebrating freedom. Table of Contents. That is a question Frederick Douglass posed 169 Julys ago in a speech to a group of abolitionists, one that's become perhaps his most famous. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably work The downfall of slavery. See this drove sold and separated forever; and never forget the deep, sad sobs that arose from that scattered multitude. It is not that pure and undefiled religion which is from above, and which is first pure, then peaceable, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. But a religion which favors the rich against the poor; which exalts the proud above the humble; which divides mankind into two classes, tyrants and slaves; which says to the man in chains, stay there; and to the oppressor, oppress on; it is a religion which may be professed and enjoyed by all the robbers and enslavers of mankind; it makes God a respecter of persons, denies his fatherhood of the race, and tramples in the dust the great truth of the brotherhood of man. A major theme of the speech is how America is not living up to its proclaimed beliefs. These ministers make religion a cold and flinty-hearted thing, having neither principles of right action, nor bowels of compassion. 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. To . These wretched people are to be sold singly, or in lots, to suit purchasers. What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible being? $ 3.60. be warned! I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! They felt themselves the victims of grievous wrongs, wholly incurable in their colonial capacity. It is carried on in all the large towns and cities in one-half of this confederacy; and millions are pocketed every year, by dealers in this horrid traffic. Thoughts expressed on one side of the Atlantic are, distinctly heard on the other. You have no right to wear out and waste the hard-earned fame of your fathers to cover your indolence. An American judge gets ten dollars for every victim he con signs to slavery, and five, when he fails to do so. You profess to believe that, of one blood, God made all nations of men to dwell on the face of all the earth, and hath commanded all men, everywhere to love one another; yet you notoriously hate, (and glory in your hatred), all men whose skins are not colored like your own. I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people!By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. [19]. Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has stronger nerves than I have. The 4th of July is the first great fact in your nation's historythe very ring-bolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny. 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. The Oratory of Fr. Frederick Douglass, ca 1855, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Your President, your Secretary of State, your lords, 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. With brave men there is always a remedy for oppression. Before you read the speech you can follow these links to learn more about Douglass's life and the evolution of his thought in this period. On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? 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. Douglass also stresses the view that slaves and free Americans are equal in nature. dismay. Follow the drove to New Orleans. Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetual remembrance. You discourse eloquently on the dignity of labor; yet, you sustain a system which, in its very essence, casts a stigma upon labor. 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. Assignment in book chapter School Alief Early College High School Course English language and literature (ELL2002) Uploaded by God Academic year2021/2022 Helpful? The occasion was the Society's Fourth of July celebration, but Douglass refused to give the speech on July 4; he would not celebrate the holiday so long as African Americans remained enslaved. It was demanded, in the name of humanity, and according to the law of the living God. 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 founding fathers left black people and women out of these rights for "everyone." 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? [Under the Act] it became illegal not to arrest and return runaway slaves. Were not only going to be reading books like White Fragility, and Divided by Faith, but were also going to read and watch a number of speeches by Martin Luther King Jr., and documentaries like 13th and King in the Wilderness, as we try to get at the root of racial division so we can come together to remove it. He is a bird for the sportsmans gun. ROY: Douglass wrote the speech in the wake of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which effectively extended the reach of slave power in the South throughout the rest of the country. The anti-slavery movement there was 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 or a hostile position towards that movement. 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.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 prosecuting the anti-slavery enterprise, we have been asked to spare the church, to spare the ministry; but how, we ask, could such a thing be done? GAZETTE: What is the historical setting for this speech, and why did Douglass focus on the Fourth of July? When a child, my soul was often pierced with a sense of its horrors. As the project scholar, my role is to advise the process as it rolls out, to give a talk that provides contemporary and historical context and to facilitate the community discussion around the speech against the backdrop of other relevant issues. 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. Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. or is it in the temple? You may rejoice, I must mourn. It is said that America is built on the idea of liberty and freedom, but Douglass tells his audience that more than anything, it is built on inconsistencies and hypocrisies that have been overlooked for so long they appear to be truths. The right of the hunter to his prey stands superior to the right of marriage, and to all rights in this republic, the rights of God included! Douglass referred not only to the captivity of enslaved people, but to the merciless exploitation and the cruelty and torture that slaves were subjected to in the United States. 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.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. 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. Oceans no longer divide, but link nations together. 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. If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. The fiat of the Almighty, Let there be Light, has not yet spent its force. He became a leader in the abolitionist movement, which sought to end the practice of slavery, before and during the Civil War. Ethiopia shall stretch out her hand unto God. In the fervent aspirations of William Lloyd Garrison, I say, and let every heart join in saying it: Frederick Douglass delivered his famous speech at the Corinthian Hall in Rochester, NY, on July 5th, 1852. 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. 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. sanction. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? It saps the foundation of religion; it makes your name a hissing, and a by word to a mocking earth. Creative people have bypassed gatekeepers for centuries to distribute what they wanted to share so badly. 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