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? For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. 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. According to this fact, you are, even now, only in the beginning of your national career, still lingering in the period of childhood. 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! Initially mentored by William Lloyd Garrison, Douglass [17] This act drew the ire of the abolitionist movement,[9] and was directly criticized by Douglass in his speech. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future, Douglass said. They, however, gradually flow back to the same old channel, and flow on as serenely as ever. Read its preamble, consider its purposes. 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. 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. 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. The speech has since been published under the above title in The Frederick Douglass Papers, Series One, Vol. The crack you heard, was the sound of the slave-whip; the scream you heard, was from the woman you saw with the babe. Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, is wrong? 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. . Of this sort of change they are always strongly in favor. GAZETTE: Why is it important to do this kind of community-building work at a local level? 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. When a child, my soul was often pierced with a sense of its horrors. I am not that man. Over 150,000 persons were sold between 1820 and 1830, and over 300,000 were sold between 1850 and 1860.[15]. The arm of the Lord is not shortened, and the doom of slavery is certain. in preference to the gospel, as preached by those Divines! 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. In this respect, Douglass's views converged with that of Abraham Lincoln's[25] in that those politicians who were saying that the Constitution was a justification for their beliefs in regard to slavery were doing so dishonestly. A feeling has crept over me, quite unfavorable to the exercise of my limited powers of speech. They may also rise in wrath and fury, and bear away, on their angry waves, the accumulated wealth of years of toil and hardship. Sign up for daily emails to get the latest Harvardnews. 2. He refers to the Constitution as a "Glorious Liberty Document". when ye make many prayers, I will not hear. Text Frederick Douglass, " What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? These people were called Tories in the days of your fathers. The accepted time with God and his cause is the ever-living now. 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. ts future might be shrouded in gloom, and the hope of its prophets go out in sorr. Yea! 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!Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? In short, it gave the federal government an active role in maintaining the Souths system of slavery. I am glad, fellow-citizens, that your nation is so young. Nobody doubts it. [16][17] Finally, the Act did not allow the accused individual of defending themselves in court. One small step toward understanding gravity, Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is. It saps the foundation of religion; it makes your name a hissing, and a by word to a mocking earth. This truth is not a doubtful one. There was, at that time, a grand slave mart kept at the head of Pratt Street, by Austin Woldfolk. The sin of which it is guilty is one of omission as well as of commission. Products. The subject has been handled with masterly power by Lysander Spooner, Esq., by William Goodell, by Samuel E. Sewall, Esq., and last, though not least, by Gerritt Smith, Esq. 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. 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. 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. Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? 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 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! Yet his monument is built up by the price of human blood, and the traders in the bodies and souls of men shoutWe have Washington to our father.Alas! Douglass' speech came just 11 years before Lincolns Emancipation Proclamation hitting a poignant point in American history through his targeting of the slave as a crucial figure in desperate need of independence. Many of its most eloquent Divines. No abuse, no outrage whether in taste, sport or avarice, can now hide itself from the all-pervading light. Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? Hear his savage yells and his blood-chilling oaths, as he hurries on his affrighted captives! Knowledge was then confined and enjoyed by the privileged few, and the multitude walked on in mental darkness. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? 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? The crack you heard, was the sound of the slave-whip; the scream you heard, was from the woman you saw with the babe. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. I repeat, I am glad this is so. 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. There should be no shoulder that does not bear the burden of the government. He had a prophetic vision for the future that he was always trying to work toward. To the slave, Douglass tells the audience, "your 4th of July is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license [for enslaving blacks] . They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. Space is comparatively annihilated. What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? Frederick Douglass, circa 1879. A general shout would go up from the church, demanding repeal, repeal, instant repeal!And it would go hard with that politician who presumed to solicit the votes of the people without inscribing this motto on his banner. For who is there so cold, that a nations sympathy could not warm him? 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. 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. [5] Many copies of one section of it, beginning in paragraph 32, have been circulated online. [19]. Knowledge is becoming more readily available, Douglass said, and soon the American people will open their eyes to the atrocities they have been inflicting on their fellow Americans. And instead of being the honest men I have before declared them to be, they were the veriest imposters that ever practiced on mankind. 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. These wretched people are to be sold singly, or in lots, to suit purchasers. that he is the rightful owner of his own body? Born into slavery around 1818, Douglass became a key leader of the abolitionist movement. Your fathers were wise men, and if they did not go mad, they became restive under this treatment. Mark the sad procession, as it moves wearily along, and the inhuman wretch who drives them. 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. "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? 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. (3) $3.99. [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. We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future. Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? That people contented themselves under the shadow of Abrahams great name, while they repudiated the deeds which made his name great. 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. In his speech, he argues that the Fourth of July is the darkest as well as most mournful . 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. be warned! Without this fight, the liberty of an American citizen would be as insecure as that of a Frenchman. He implored the Rochester, N.Y., audience to think about the ongoing oppression of Black Americans during a holiday celebrating freedom. During the 1850's, the Fourth of July served as a reminder of the many horrors and injustices in the world. 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. My subject, then fellow-citizens, is AMERICAN SLAVERY. [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. You discourse eloquently on the dignity of labor; yet, you sustain a system which, in its very essence, casts a stigma upon labor. 2. You hurl your anathemas at the crowned headed tyrants of Russia and Austria, and pride yourselves on your Democratic institutions, while you yourselves consent to be the mere tools and body-guards of the tyrants of Virginia and Carolina. The Fugitive Slave Law makes 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. or is it in the temple? The power is co-extensive with the Star-Spangled Banner and American Christianity. Because the church stood behind the decision to abolish the selling and buying of people, so did the rest of the country. It is neither. He argues that the Constitution does not permit slavery, contrary to the claims of contemporary defenders of the institution. Interview was lightly edited for clarity and length. 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. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably work The downfall of slavery. The far off and almost fabulous Pacific rolls in grandeur at our feet. Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to. The Oratory of Fr. From what quarter, I beg to know, has proceeded a fire so deadly upon our ranks, during the last two years, as from the Northern pulpit? Is that a question for Republicans? your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery." Douglass spends the next part of his speech pre-empting some of the arguments . There is blasphemy in the thought. The duty to extirpate and destroy it, is admitted even by our DOCTORS OF DIVINITY. In that speech, he cast the abolitionist movement as being engaged in a "War" against defenders of slavery. 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