The 4th of July is the first great fact in your nations historythe very ring-bolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny. Douglass denounces the churches for betraying their own biblical and Christian values. 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. An American judge gets ten dollars for every victim he con signs to slavery, and five, when he fails to do so. Noble men may be found, scattered all over these Northern States, of whom Henry Ward Beecher of Brooklyn, Samuel J. 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. They are food for the cotton-field, and the deadly sugar-mill. I repeat, I am glad this is so. 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,. Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. ROY: The event that were doing in Somerville puts pressure on whitewashed conceptions of the Fourth of July, as many people to this day still view it as a celebration of American food, fireworks, and freedom. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. When a sufficient number have been collected here, a ship is chartered, for the purpose of conveying the forlorn crew to Mobile, or to New Orleans. They strip the love of God of its beauty, and leave the throng of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form. Initially mentored by William Lloyd Garrison, Douglass There, see the old man, with locks thinned and gray. In several states, this trade is a chief source of wealth. Nations do not now stand in the same relation to each other that they did ages ago. Her speed had faltered under the weight of her child and her chains! In the solitude of my spirit, I see clouds of dust raised on the highways of the South; I see the bleeding footsteps; I hear the doleful wail of fettered humanity, on the way to the slave-markets, where the victims are to be sold like horses, sheep, and swine, knocked off to the highest bidder. welcome anything! You may rejoice, I must mourn. More than 150 years later, Keidrick Roy, a doctoral student in American Studies at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and a U.S. Air Force veteran, will host a virtual community reading and discussion of the storied speech at the Somerville Museum on Thursday as part of the annual state-wide MassHumanities program Reading Frederick Douglass Together.. 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. There, the question of emancipation was a high religious question. 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. 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. To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding.There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, that does not know that slavery is wrong for him.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 bum their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. "[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. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. In a Fourth of July holiday special, we hear the words of Frederick Douglass. The country can progress like it has before, transforming from being a colony of a far-away king to an independent nation. The speech has since been published under the above title in The Frederick Douglass Papers, Series One, Vol. 2. Douglass believed that slavery could be eliminated with the support of the church, and also with the reexamination of what the Bible was actually saying. He wrote a glowing letter of encouragement to Harriet Tubman, which served as the preface to Sarah Bradfords 1869 biography about Tubmans life. [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. Douglass declares that true freedom can not exist in America if Black people are still enslaved there and is adamant that the end of slavery is near. Yea! It is neither. See this drove sold and separated forever; and never forget the deep, sad sobs that arose from that scattered multitude. Cling to this daycling to it, and to its principles, with the grasp of a storm-tossed mariner to a spar at midnight, Neither steam nor lightning had then been reduced to order and discipline, With them, justice, liberty and humanity were final; not slavery and oppression. After this, he turns his attention to the church. the feeling of despair in the face of obstacles. 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. had I the ability, and could I reach the nations ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. Not for thieves and robbers, enemies of society, merely, but for men guilty of no crime. 2003. 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. 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. [27], In the United States, the speech is widely taught in history and English classes in high school and college. They hate all changes, but silver, gold and copper change! Douglass builds his argument by using surprising contrasts, plain facts, and provocative antithesis. 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. What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? Follow the drove to New Orleans. Heat and sorrow have nearly consumed their strength; suddenly you hear a quick snap, like the discharge of a rifle; the fetters clank, and the chain rattles simultaneously; your ears are saluted with a scream, that seems to have torn its way to the center of your soul! Washington could not die till he had broken the chains of his slaves. . The cause of liberty may be stabbed by the men who glory in the deeds of your fathers. He had delivered a series of seven lectures about slavery there in the winter of 185051. You have already declared it. I take it, therefore, that it is not presumption in a private citizen to form an opinion of that instrument.Now, take the Constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. [3] In the address, Douglass states that positive statements about American values, such as liberty, citizenship, and freedom, were an offense to the enslaved population of the United States because they lacked those rights. A feeling has crept over me, quite unfavorable to the exercise of my limited powers of speech. 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 of Him by whom the professed to he called to the ministry, deliberately taught us, against the example or the Hebrews and against the remonstrance of the Apostles, they teach that we ought to obey mans law before the law of God.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. I am not that man. 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. Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. 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. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? They, however, gradually flow back to the same old channel, and flow on as serenely as ever. Douglass addressed a part of the population for which the day had huge significance the true independence, he argues, is not for the American people, but for the American slave. [5], A statue of Douglass erected in Rochester in 2018 was torn down on July 5, 2020the 168th anniversary of the speech. 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! 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. 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. "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? ts future might be shrouded in gloom, and the hope of its prophets go out in sorr. The evil that men do, lives after them, The good is oft-interred with their bones. What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? 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.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.Take the American slave-trade, which, we are told by the papers, is especially prosperous just now. 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. Kate Harris Date Published September 28, 2016 Last Modified November 14, 2021 Description. 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.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.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. How digital misinformation may keep you from a good nights sleep, Study finds surgical patients with addiction issues may be at greater risk for complications, including sudden cardiac death after anesthesia, Khalil Gibran Muhammad says College Board needs to stand firm behind curriculum, Chief counsel of respected mid-70s Senate inquiry into improper federal investigations says credibility of oversight function at stake, 2023 The President and Fellows of Harvard College, Photo courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration, By Manisha Aggarwal-Schifellite Harvard Staff Writer, 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. 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. By an act of the American Congress, not yet two years old, Mason and Dixons line has been obliterated, Did this law concern the mint, anise, and cumin. that he is the rightful owner of his own body? The Fugitive Slave Law makes mercy to them a crime; and bribes the judge who tries them. What to the American slave is your Fourth of July? The Act also denied suspected slaves trial by jury or even the ability to testify on their own behalf in court. The 4th of July Address, delivered in Corinthian Hall, by Frederick Douglass, is published on good paper, and makes a neat pamphlet of forty pages. On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? That trade has long since been denounced by this government, as piracy. In a Fourth of July holiday special, we begin with the words of Frederick Douglass. [20]:346 To prove evidence of these inconsistencies, as one historian noted, during the speech Douglass claims that the United States Constitution is an abolitionist document and not a pro-slavery document.[22][23][24]. 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. 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. See, too, that girl of thirteen, weeping, yes! 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. Space is comparatively annihilated. And instead of being the honest men I have before declared them to be, they were the veriest imposters that ever practiced on mankind. The fact that the church of our country, (with fractional exceptions), does not esteem the Fugitive Slave Law as a declaration of war against religious liberty, implies that that church regards religion simply as a form of worship, an empty ceremony, and not a vital principle, requiring active benevolence, justice, love and good will towards man. Would you argue more, and denounce less, would you persuade more, and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed. The iron shoe, and crippled foot of China must be seen, in contrast with nature. Oceans no longer divide, but link nations together. In short, it gave the federal government an active role in maintaining the Souths system of slavery. was delivered in the decade preceding the American Civil War, which lasted from 1861 to 1865 and achieved the abolition of slavery. 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. 00 Comments Please sign inor registerto post comments. Keidrick Roy, the host of the virtual reading event. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? 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! 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. or is it in the temple? The inaugural meeting between six women took place in Corinthian Hall on August 20. 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! On July 4, 1852, Frederick Douglass-- a former American slave, abolitionist leader and adroit speaker-- spoke in Rochester, New York about the affectation of celebrating independence. Stauffer, John. your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery." Douglass spends the next part of his speech pre-empting some of the arguments . That people contented themselves under the shadow of Abrahams great name, while they repudiated the deeds which made his name great. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the lame man leap as an hart.But, such is not the state of the case. [4], Noted for its biting irony and bitter rhetoric, and acute textual analysis of the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Christian Bible, the speech is among the most widely known of all of Douglass's writings. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? To me the American slave-trade is a terrible reality. It is a religion for oppressors, tyrants, man-stealers, and thugs. Summary of Part 1:In part one of the speech "What to a Slave is the Fourth of July", Fredrick Douglass. You may rejoice, I must mourn. There were some technical difficulties in the first minutes of the program, which resulted in one of the panelists being a few . Born into slavery around 1818, Douglass became a key leader of the abolitionist movement. The fiat of the Almighty, Let there be Light, has not yet spent its force. The 'Address' may be had at this office, price ten cents, a single copy, or six dollars per hundred. official permission or approval. The time was when such could be done. One of the biggest challenges we face in our present moment is building sustainable movements that fundamentally change peoples minds about race and racism. Great streams are not easily turned from channels, worn deep in the course of ages. The duty to extirpate and destroy it, is admitted even by our DOCTORS OF DIVINITY. ROY:One of the things that Douglass writings shows us is that he believed in amplifying a variety of voices. What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? The speech "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" was delivered in the decade preceding the American Civil War, which lasted from 1861 to 1865 and achieved the abolition of slavery. If youre not a person of color, its one thing to go to a couple of events or protests, or to read a few articles and move on. 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. 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. There is consolation in the thought that America is young. or is it in the temple? 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. He was fortunate to have been taught to read by his slave owner mistress, and he would go on to become one of the major literary figures of his time. 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. 5.0. 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. whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. Your fathers have lived, died, and have done their work, and have done much of it well. The timid and the prudent (as has been intimated) of that day, were, of course, shocked and alarmed by it. [10] Douglass had spoken at Corinthian Hall in the past. His own testimony is nothing. Nevertheless, Douglass claims that this can change. Some of these have had wives and children, dependent on them for bread; but of this, no account was made. [11] Additionally, he had spoken there less than three months prior to this speech, on March 25. Mark the sad procession, as it moves wearily along, and the inhuman wretch who drives them. It is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. The audience must fulfill what the founders of the country advocated. The crack you heard, was the sound of the slave-whip; the scream you heard, was from the woman you saw with the babe. These men were generally well dressed men, and very captivating in their manners. 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. 2. Text Frederick Douglass, " What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? The far off and almost fabulous Pacific rolls in grandeur at our feet. But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. This act forced citizens to report people who had escaped their enslavement and escaped to a free state, under punishment of a fine or imprisonment. They felt themselves the victims of grievous wrongs, wholly incurable in their colonial capacity. For black men there are neither law, justice, humanity, not religion. Yea! He also wrote a letter to Ida B. Need I tell you that the Jews are not the only people who built the tombs of the prophets, and garnished the sepulchres of the righteous? I have better employments for my time and strength than such arguments would imply.What, then, remains to be argued? The Oratory of Fr. by Frederick Douglass 1852 11th Grade Lexile: 1140 Font Size Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) was an African American social reformer, orator, and writer. Douglass, Frederick, ed. 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, then will I argue with you that the slave is a man!For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. From the round top of your ship of state, dark and threatening clouds may be seen. What characteristics does he praise about them? There are seventy-two 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 the same crimes will subject a white man to the like punishment. that gash on her shoulder tells her to move on. He is outraged by the lack of responsibility and indifference towards slavery that many sects have taken around the nation. be warned! Now, there are certain rules of interpretation, for the proper understanding of all legal instruments. we wept when we remembered Zion. 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. 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 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. Products. 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. [8] Frederick Douglass had moved to Rochester in 1847 in order to publish his newspaper The North Star. 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.The flesh-mongers gather up their victims by dozens, and drive them, chained, to the general depot at Baltimore. He faults America for utter hypocrisy and betrayal of those values in maintaining the institution of slavery. 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. Ex-Senator Benton tells us that the price of men was never higher than now. Douglass vividly describes the conditions under which those enslaved are bought and sold; he says that they are treated as no more than animals. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. The speech 'What to the Slaves is the Fourth of July' projected the American Day of Independence from a slave's point of view and brought to light the horrific experiences of slavery. When he fails to do with your national independence, and of your yet undeveloped destiny in maintaining the system. 1865 and achieved the abolition of slavery as piracy iron shoe, and thugs the feeling despair... 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