Ex-Senator Benton tells us that the price of men was never higher than now. I have better employments for my time and strength than such arguments would imply. The Celestial Empire, the mystery of ages, is being solved. With them, justice, liberty and humanity were final; not slavery and oppression. There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, that does not know that slavery is wrong for him. 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. Sign up for NewsOne's email newsletter! 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. Frederick Douglass: (08:30) Noble men may be found, scattered all over these Northern States, of whom Henry Ward Beecher of Brooklyn, Samuel J. I have better employment for my time and strength than such arguments would imply. Even Mammon seems to have quitted his grasp on this day. On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass gave a speech at an Independence Day celebration organized by the Rochester Ladies Anti-Slavery Society. I scout the idea that the question of the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of slavery is not a question for the people. Your fathers were wise men, and if they did not go mad, they became restive under this treatment. That year will come, and freedoms reign. He who will, intelligently, lay down his life for his country, is a man whom it is not in human nature to despise. 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. There is consolation in the thought that America is young. 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. Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice embodied in that Declaration of Independence extended to us? The causes which led to the separation of the colonies from the British crown have never lacked for a tongue. 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. 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. Full transcript of the famous speech What to the Slave is the 4th of July? by Frederick Douglass. For it is not light that is needed, but fire. He rose from the shackles of slavery to become an author, newspaper publisher, and respected abolitionist. 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. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced. 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.. You know what is a swine-drover? The Sharps, the Clarksons, the Wilberforces, the Buxtons, and Burchells and the Knibbs, were alike famous for their piety, and for their philanthropy. Convert your audio or video into 99% accurate text by a professional. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the lame man leap as an hart.. To arrest it, to put an end to it, this nation keeps a squadron, at immense cost, on the coast of Africa. The manhood of the slave is conceded. 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? Under these, and innumerable other disadvantages, your fathers declared for liberty and independence and triumphed. 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. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. 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. 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 ions, 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? 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? 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. There, the question of emancipation was a high religious question. The blessings in which you this day rejoice are not enjoyed in common. The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong city. Oceans no longer divide, but link nations together. But a still more inhuman, disgraceful, and scandalous state of things remains to be presented. Do you mean citizens to mock me by asking me to speak today? 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 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. 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, . WebFrederick Douglass, July 5, 1852 INTRODUCTION (Exordium) 1. Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? 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. The manhood of the slave is conceded. On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? What was possible for him, he sincerely believed was possible for any man who was willing to work hard. It is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost. that it should be so; yet so it is. May of Syracuse, and my esteemed friend (Rev. 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. Thu 5 Jul 2018 07.00 EDT Last modified on Wed 24 Jul 2019 11.58 EDT. But the church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of the slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors. 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? They were quiet men; but they did not shrink from agitating against oppression. The simple story of it is that, 76 years ago, the people of this country were British subjects. That people contented themselves under the shadow of Abrahams great name, while they repudiated the deeds which made his name great. 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. 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. Is it that slavery is not divine, that God did not establish it, that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? They felt themselves the victims of grievous wrongs, wholly incurable in their colonial capacity. They were not the men to look back. That bolt drawn, that chain broken, and all is lost. At a time like this, scorching irony not convincing argument is needed. 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. I was born amid such sights and scenes. "What to the Slave is the 4th of July?" The freedom gained is yours; and you, therefore, may properly celebrate this anniversary. Translated on-screen subtitles for videos. The population was weak and scattered, and the country a wilderness unsubdued. Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. Yet his monument is built up by the price of human blood, and the traders in the bodies and souls of men shout We have Washington toour father. Alas! They, that can, may. in preference to the gospel,as preached by those Divines! The Fugitive SlaveLawmakes mercy to them a crime; and bribes the judge who tries them. The whole scene, as I look back to it, was simple, dignified and sublime. There are illustrations of it near and remote, ancient and modern. The questions are designed to provoke thought and guide the students through the document. Your broad republican domain is hunting ground formen. They were statesmen, patriots and heroes, and for the good they did, and the principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory. Now, there are certain rules of interpretation, for the proper understanding of all legal instruments. Your cause would be much more likely to succeed. The population of the country, at the time, stood at the insignificant number of three millions. Speech-to-Text API for pre-recorded audio, powered by the worlds leading speech recognition engine. It is, however, a notable fact that, while so much execration is poured out by Americans upon those engaged in the foreign slave-trade, the men engaged in the slave-trade between the states pass without condemnation, and their business is deemed honorable. You may rejoice, I must mourn.. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me. That which is inhuman, cannot be divine! whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? 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! You have already declared it. welcome atheism! The Lords of Buffalo, the Springs of New York, the Lathrops of Auburn, the Coxes and Spencers of Brooklyn, the Gannets and Sharps of Boston, the Deweys of Washington, and other great religious lights of the land have, in utter denial of the authority ofHimby whom they professed to be called to the ministry, deliberately taught us, against the example or the Hebrews and against the remonstrance of the Apostles, they teachthat we ought to obey mans law before the law of God. With brave men there is always a remedy for oppression. There is blasphemy in the thought. 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! 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 and sacrilegious irony. But I admit, where all is plain, there is nothing to be argued. 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. Were the nation older, the patriots heart might be sadder, and the reformers brow heavier. 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. 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. Build with the best speech-to-text APIs around. Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood and stained with pollution is wrong? 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. 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! As noted here, that banquet was attended by prominent African-American professional men in celebration of the twenty-first anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation.After the toast provided by former Senator Blanche K. Bruce, Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? They petitioned and remonstrated; they did so in a decorous, respectful, and loyal manner. Speech-to-Text live streaming for live captions, powered by the worlds leading speech recognition API. But now is the time, the important time. 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? Cling to this day cling to it, and to its principles, with the grasp of a storm-tossed mariner to a spar at midnight. Hear his savage yells and his blood-chilling oaths, as he hurries on his affrighted captives! For 186 years this doctrine of national independence has shaken the globeand it remains the most powerful force anywhere in the world today. Some of these have had wives and children, dependent on them for bread; but of this, no account was made. You may rejoice. Oh! Under Title 17 U.S.C. Is it at the gateway? 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 is a primary source reading analysis of Frederick Douglass' famous speech. Racist Ex-University Of Kentucky 'Karen' Sophia Rosing Is Charged For Assaulting Black Student. You discourse eloquently on the dignity of labor; yet, you sustain a system which, in its very essence, casts a stigma upon labor. 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. Your fathers staked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, on the cause of their country. 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. By an act of the American Congress, not yet two years old, slavery has been nationalized in its most horrible and revolting form. The style and title of your sovereign people (in which you now glory) was not then born. Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. Washington could not die till he had broken the chains of his slaves. Its the news, without the news. Calculate how much it costs to transcribe, caption, or subtitle your content. He mentions the fact to show that slavery is in no danger. 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. Take the American slave-trade, which, we are told by the papers, is especially prosperous just now. For there, they that carried us away captive, required of us a song; and they who wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. I was glad to find one who sympathized with me in my horror. R. R. Raymond) on the platform, are shining examples; and let me say further, that upon these men lies the duty to inspire our ranks with high religious faith and zeal, and to cheer us on in the great mission of the slaves redemption from his chains. If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. It has made itself the bulwark of American slavery, and the shield of American slave-hunters. Friends and citizens, I need not enter further into the causes which led to this anniversary. 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! No nation can now shut itself up from the surrounding world, and trot round in the same old path of its fathers without interference. 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. 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. Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has stronger nerves than I have. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. They succeeded; and to-day you reap the fruits of their success. 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. My subject then, fellow citizens, is American slavery. The propriety of the nation must be startled. 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. This, however, did not answer the purpose. There was, at that time, a grand slave mart kept at the head of Pratt Street, by Austin Woldfolk. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? From the round top of your ship of state, dark and threatening clouds may be seen. He rose from the shackles of slavery to become an author, 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. weeping, as she thinks of the mother from whom she has been torn! But a change has now come over the affairs of mankind. 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. 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? We are called upon to prove that we are men. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Many of its most eloquent Divines. During 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. And the conscience of the nation must be roused. 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: This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. 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. You could instruct me in regard to them. 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. WebFrederick Douglass speech Historical Document "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro" 1852 Resource Bank Contents Click here for the text of this historical document. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.. An American judge gets ten dollars for every victim he consigns to slavery, and five, when he fails to do so. Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience nor grace my speech with any high sounding exordium. I repeat, I am glad this is so. Let it be thundered around the world, that, in tyrant-killing, king-hating, people-loving, democratic, Christian America, the seats of justice are filled with judges, who hold their offices under an open and palpablebribe, and are bound, in deciding in the case of a mans liberty,hear only his accusers! When a child, my soul was often pierced with a sense of its horrors. And it would go hard with that politician who presumed to solicit the votes of the people without inscribing this motto on his banner. I shall not be charged with slandering Americans, if I say I think the American side of any question may be safely left in American hands. On the other hand it will be found to contain principles and purposes, entirely hostile to the existence of slavery. Feeling themselves harshly and unjustly treated by the home government, your fathers, like men of honesty, and men of spirit, earnestly sought redress.
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