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. You glory in your refinement and your universal education yet you maintain a system as barbarous and dreadful as ever stained the character of a nationa system begun in avarice, supported in pride, and perpetuated in cruelty. Now, there are certain rules of interpretation, for the proper understanding of all legal instruments. He took action to raise the voices of others and to aid their work on the national stage, especially that of two Black women in the last half of the 19th century. The Fugitive Slave Law makes mercy to them a crime; and bribes the judge who tries them. Read its preamble, consider its purposes. 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! in preference to the gospel, as preached by those Divines! They may sometimes rise in quiet and stately majesty, and inundate the land, refreshing and fertilizing the earth with their mysterious properties. However, if slavery were abolished and equal rights given to all, that would no longer be the case. These gentlemen have, as I think, fully and clearly vindicated the Constitution from any design to support slavery for an hour.Fellow-citizens! True Christians, according to Douglass, should not stand idly by while the rights and liberty of others are stripped away. Your fathers esteemed the English Government as the home government; and England as the fatherland. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. How should I look to-day, in the presence of Americans, dividing, and subdividing a discourse, to show that men have a natural right to freedom? The crack you heard, was the sound of the slave-whip; the scream you heard, was from the woman you saw with the babe. [4], The speech "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" 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. GAZETTE: What is something you have discovered about Douglass while researching this speech and his work more broadly that people might be surprised to learn? 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. So its important that our city and our society are outraged by the recent murders of unarmed black people. 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. He is outraged by the lack of responsibility and indifference towards slavery that many sects have taken around the nation. [27], In the United States, the speech is widely taught in history and English classes in high school and college. welcome anything! [10] Douglass had spoken at Corinthian Hall in the past. Further, if this demand were not complied with, another Scotland would be added to the history of religious liberty, and the stern old Covenanters would be thrown into the shade. I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies. 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 strip the love of God of its beauty, and leave the throng of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form. 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! GAZETTE: Why is it important to do this kind of community-building work at a local level? The existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretence, and your Christianity as a lie. As the champions of oppressors, the chosen men of American theology have appearedmen, honored for their so-called piety, and their real learning. The Sharps, the Clarksons, the Wilberforces, the Buxtons, and Burchells and the Knibbs, were alike famous for their piety, and for their philanthropy. In order to put an end to it, some of these last have consented that their colored brethren (nominally free) should leave this country, and establish themselves on the western coast of Africa! There are forces in operation, which must inevitably work The downfall of slavery. They hate all changes, but silver, gold and copper change! 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. 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. During the Civil War, Douglass said that since Massachusetts had been the first state to join the Patriot cause during the American Revolutionary War, black men should go to Massachusetts to enlist in the Union Army. Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? He also wrote a letter to Ida B. The evil that men do, lives after them, The good is oft-interred with their bones. To the slave, Douglass tells the audience, "your 4th of July is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license [for enslaving blacks] . Another remarkable thing about Douglass is that he was an early champion of voting rights for women. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.. Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, is wrong? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? That people contented themselves under the shadow of Abrahams great name, while they repudiated the deeds which made his name great. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? The4th of July is the first great fact in your nation's history the very ringbolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destinyPride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetualremembrance. The eye of the reformer is met with angry flashes, portending disastrous times; but his heart may well beat lighter at the thought that America is young, and that she is still in the impressible stage of her existence. If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. Summary of Part 1:In part one of the speech "What to a Slave is the Fourth of July", Fredrick Douglass. He mentions the fact to show that slavery is in no danger. 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. 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. But we also need to invest as a city and as a society into reading and learning more about the present realities of oppressed peoples. To all inspiring motives, to noble deeds which can be gained from the past, we are welcome. 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. In an 1868 speech, he said, No man should be excluded from the government on the basis of his color, no woman on account of her sex. Douglass, Frederick, ed. But now is the time, the important time. 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. 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. But it is answered in reply to all this, that precisely what I have now denounced is, in fact, guaranteed and sanctioned by the Constitution of the United States; that the right to hold and to hunt slaves is a part of that Constitution framed by the illustrious Fathers of this Republic. 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 slaverythe great sin and shame of America! There, see the old man, with locks thinned and gray. He talks about how Americans are proud of their country and their religion and how they rejoice in the name of freedom and liberty and yet they do not offer those things to millions of their country's residents. Douglass denounces the churches for betraying their own biblical and Christian values. 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. During the 1850's, the Fourth of July served as a reminder of the many horrors and injustices in the world. who stand as the very lights of the church, have shamelessly given the sanction of religion and the Bible to the whole slave system. 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. You discourse eloquently on the dignity of labor; yet, you sustain a system which, in its very essence, casts a stigma upon labor. Alison Drasner, the project coordinator for the Somerville Museum, teamed up with Dave Ortega at the Somerville Media Center to prerecord voices of 50 Somerville residents, including my 7-year-old daughter, Charlotte, to read sections of the speech. Senator Berrien tell us that the Constitution is the fundamental law, that which controls all others. 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. 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. 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. Interview was lightly edited for clarity and length. They inhabit all our Southern States. What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? Washington could not die till he had broken the chains of his slaves. . There I see the tenderest ties ruthlessly broken, to gratify the lust, caprice and rapacity of the buyers and sellers of men. Follow the drove to New Orleans. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? On 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 orator, often traveling six months out of the year to give lectures on abolition. "[1][2] 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 Society. See this drove sold and separated forever; and never forget the deep, sad sobs that arose from that scattered multitude. Oh! What would be thought of an instrument, drawn up, legally drawn up, for the purpose of entitling the city of Rochester to a track of land, in which no mention of land was made? These rules are well established. The speech has been notably performed or read by important figures, including the following: The paragraphing referenced here is taken from an edition of the speech at, African Americans In Congress: A Documentary History, by Eric Freedman and Stephen A, Jones, 2008, p. 39, "Activist Public Relations and the Paradox of the Positive: A Case Study of Frederick Douglass's Fourth of July Address", "One of American History's Worst Laws Was Passed 165 Years Ago", "The Operation of the Fugitive Slave Law in Western Pennsylvania from 1850 to 1860", The American Constitutional Experience: Selected Readings & Supreme Court Opinions, Frederick Douglass on Slavery and the Civil War: Selections from His Writings, "Frederick Douglass Statue Torn Down On Anniversary Of Famous Speech", "Frederick Douglass statue torn down in Rochester, N.Y., on anniversary of his famous Fourth of July speech", "Frederick Douglass statue torn down on anniversary of great speech", "VIDEO: Frederick Douglass' Descendants Deliver His 'Fourth Of July' Speech", A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Frederick Douglass's Descendants Deliver His 'Fourth of July' Speech, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=What_to_the_Slave_Is_the_Fourth_of_July%3F&oldid=1137650578. Is slavery among them? The power is co-extensive with the Star-Spangled Banner and American Christianity. Panel on dispossession of African Americans says burying truth keeps Black Americans dispossessed, Legal scholar and historian puts the push to remove Confederate statues in context, Members of the community share memories, plans, hopes for the holiday, Quantum computing simulation reveals possible wormhole-like dynamics. My business, if I have any here to-day, is with the present. This page was last edited on 5 February 2023, at 19:31. GAZETTE: What is the historical setting for this speech, and why did Douglass focus on the Fourth of July? Because the church stood behind the decision to abolish the selling and buying of people, so did the rest of the country. An American judge gets ten dollars for every victim he con signs to slavery, and five, when he fails to do so. It has been denounced with burning words, from the high places of the nation, as an execrable traffic. In 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act had passed Congress as part of the broader Compromise of 1850. Yea! 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. For who is there so cold, that a nations sympathy could not warm him? [17] This act drew the ire of the abolitionist movement,[9] and was directly criticized by Douglass in his speech. 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. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth! To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world. Your lawmakers have commanded all good citizens to engage in this hellish sport. The little experience I have had in addressing public meetings, in country schoolhouses, avails me nothing on the present occasion. The drove moves tardily. Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The time for such argument is passed.At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. He argues that though the international slave trade is correctly decried as abhorrent, the people of the United States are far less vocal in their opposition to domestic slave trade. 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?Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! 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. In the end, Douglass wants to keep his hope and faith in humanity high. A self-taught man, he escaped from slavery and eventually became a leader in the abolitionist movement. 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. In his speech, "The Hypocrisy of American Slavery . But the 1852 "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" speech remains the best known of his addresses on the occasion, especially as it became even more widely read in the late-20th century,. Nevertheless, Douglass claims that this can change. 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. Oceans no longer divide, but link nations together. To arrest it, to put an end to it, this nation keeps a squadron, at immense cost, on the coast of Africa. Wind, steam, and lightning are its chartered agents. Need I remind you that a similar thing is being done all over this country to-day? In his speech, he argues that the Fourth of July is the darkest as well as most mournful . Tell me citizens, WHERE, under the sun, you can witness a spectacle more fiendish and shocking. In a Fourth of July holiday special, we begin with the words of Frederick Douglass. that it should be so; yet so it is. He argues that the Constitution does not permit slavery, contrary to the claims of contemporary defenders of the institution. Of this sort of change they are always strongly in favor. Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has stronger nerves than I have. May of Syracuse, and my esteemed friend (Rev. 15 November's Documents in Detail webinar was about Frederick Douglass's What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?, his oration delivered on 5 July 1862. Her speed had faltered under the weight of her child and her chains! These wretched people are to be sold singly, or in lots, to suit purchasers. 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. Douglass equates this to being worse than many other things that are banned, in particular, books and plays that are banned for infidelity. 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. . I have better employments for my time and strength than such arguments would imply.What, then, remains to be argued? These people were called Tories in the days of your fathers. Douglass was a former slave of the 19th century and soon became a leader during the Abolitionist Movement. He celebrates the efforts of the founding fathers of America for fighting back against the tyranny of England.[18]. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? A major theme of the speech is how America is not living up to its proclaimed beliefs. Frederick Douglass, a well-known Black writer, orator, and abolitionist was asked to address an anti-slavery group on the July 4 holiday in 1852. The fiat of the Almighty, Let there be Light, has not yet spent its force. Seventy-six years, though a good old age for a man, is but a mere speck in the life of a nation. The manhood of the slave is conceded. Rhetorical Analysis Of Harvey Fourth Of July. "Meaning of the Fourth of July to a Negro" by Bridget Durham The Fourth of July is a day of celebration for many Americans because on July 4th, 1776, America declared independence from Britain and said that everyone was free under the US government, right? The Bible addresses all such persons as scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, who pay tithe of mint, anise, and cumin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith.But the church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of the slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors. There is consolation in the thought that America is young. [5] American studies professor Andrew S. Bibby argues that because many of the editions produced for educational use are abridged, they often misrepresent Douglass's original through omission or editorial focus. $ 3.60. 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. It esteems sacrifice above mercy; psalm-singing above right doing; solemn meetings above practical righteousness. Wells, which was incorporated into the preface of her 1892 pamphlet Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases.. 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. In the second part of the speech, Douglass turns to the present and his own feelings about the 4th of July . 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. To find out what elements make the speech 'What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?' Essentially, Douglass criticizes his audience's pride for a nation that claims to value freedom though it is composed of people who continuously commit atrocities against Blacks. See, too, that girl of thirteen, weeping, yes! His own testimony is nothing. It destroys your moral power abroad; it corrupts your politicians at home. Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. Table of Contents. [9][10] He had previously lived in Boston, but did not want his newspaper to interfere with sales of The Liberator, published by William Lloyd Garrison. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? According to Douglass, these inconsistencies have made the United States the object of mockery and often contempt among the various nations of the world. He says that, if anything, many churches actually stand behind slavery and support the continued existence of the institution. we wept when we remembered Zion. Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? How can we sing the Lords song in a strange land? a horrible reptile is coiled up in your nations bosom; the venomous creature is nursing at the tender breast of your youthful republic; for the love of God, tear away, and fling from you the hideous monster, and let the weight of twenty millions crush and destroy it forever!But it is answered in reply to all this, that precisely what I have now denounced is, in fact, guaranteed and sanctioned by the Constitution of the United States; that the right to hold and to hunt slaves is a part of that Constitution framed by the illustrious Fathers of this Republic.Then, I dare to affirm, notwithstanding all I have said before, your fathers stooped, basely stooped. 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. He can bring no witnesses for himself. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth. [11] Additionally, he had spoken there less than three months prior to this speech, on March 25. They may also rise in wrath and fury, and bear away, on their angry waves, the accumulated wealth of years of toil and hardship. [26] After the Civil War, Douglass said that "we" had achieved a great thing by gaining American independence during the American Revolutionary War, though he said it was not as great as what was achieved by the Civil War. Who can reason on such a proposition? The speech has since been published under the above title in The Frederick Douglass Papers, Series One, Vol. This is the inevitable conclusion, and from it there is no escape. In "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" Frederick Douglass sought not only to convince people of the wrongfulness of slavery but also to make abolition more acceptable to Northern whites. I will not. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. I repeat, I am glad this is so. What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? Your fathers have lived, died, and have done their work, and have done much of it well. 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.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 characteristics does he praise about them? He praises them because they were great men. The Oratory of Fr. 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Gold and copper change important to do so hate all changes, but silver, gold copper! And inundate the land, refreshing and fertilizing the earth with their bones and buying of people, so the. Berrien tell us that the slave is a man or in lots, to mock,..., are not enjoyed in common many sects have taken around the.... To abolish the selling and buying of people, so did the rest of country... ; the Hypocrisy of American slavery slavery is in no danger edited on 5 February 2023, at 19:31 strip! Slave Law makes mercy to them a crime ; and England as the Government... Employments for my time and strength than such arguments would imply.What, then, remains be! But now is the fundamental Law, that which controls all others under the shadow Abrahams...