Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? I was glad to find one who sympathized with me in my horror.Fellow-citizens, this murderous traffic is, to-day, in active operation in this boasted republic. The country can progress like it has before, transforming from being a colony of a far-away king to an independent nation. He describes the legislation as "tyrannical," and believes that it is in "violation of justice.". Wells, which was incorporated into the preface of her 1892 pamphlet Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases.. To find out what elements make the speech 'What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?' 2. Great Britain, and many other countries of that time, had already abolished slavery from its territories. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably work The downfall of slavery. There is consolation in the thought that America is young. Your fathers have lived, died, and have done their work, and have done much of it well. He had delivered a series of seven lectures about slavery there in the winter of 185051. 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? I scout the idea that the question of the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of slavery is not a question for the people. They inhabit all our Southern States. one of the most important speeches of the 19th century? It is a slander upon their memory, at least, so I believe. Heavy billows, like mountains in the distance, disclose to the leeward huge forms of flinty rocks! By that act, Mason and Dixons line has been obliterated; New York has become as Virginia; and the power to hold, hunt, and sell men, women, and children as slaves remains no longer a mere state institution, but is now an institution of the whole United States. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. Let this damning fact be perpetually told. After this, he turns his attention to the church. Their opposition to the then dangerous thought was earnest and powerful; but, amid all their terror and affrighted vociferations against it, the alarming and revolutionary idea moved on, and the country with it. that gash on her shoulder tells her to move on. 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? The duty to extirpate and destroy it, is admitted even by our DOCTORS OF DIVINITY. He is outraged by the lack of responsibility and indifference towards slavery that many sects have taken around the nation. I will show you a man-drover. A worship that can be conducted by persons who refuse to give shelter to the houseless, to give bread to the hungry, clothing to the naked, and who enjoin obedience to a law forbidding these acts of mercy, is a curse, not a blessing to mankind. Thoughts expressed on one side of the Atlantic are, distinctly heard on the other. He validates the feelings of injustice the Founders felt then juxtaposes their experiences with vivid descriptions of the harshness of slavery.[21]. 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. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? nor the perfect gage I think I have of Corinthian Hall, the slave plantation, from which I escaped, and trusting to your patient and generous indulgence, I will proceed to lay them before you, This, for the purpose of this celebration, is the 4th of July. The manhood of the slave is conceded. Follow the drove to New Orleans. 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. He implored the Rochester, N.Y., audience to think about the ongoing oppression of Black Americans during a holiday celebrating freedom. sanction. He expresses his belief in the speech that he and other slaves are fighting the same fight in terms of wishing to be free that White Americans, the ancestors of the white people he is addressing, fought seventy years earlier. 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. By that most foul and fiendish of all human decrees, the liberty and person of every man are put in peril. Nevertheless, Douglass claims that this can change. [5] Many copies of one section of it, beginning in paragraph 32, have been circulated online. . 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! 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. What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? Frederick Douglass delivered his famous speech at the Corinthian Hall in Rochester, NY, on July. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! be warned! that he is the rightful owner of his own body? 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? There is blasphemy in the thought. 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. 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. What to the Slave is the Fourth of July | Historical Context The Colonial regime paved way for the transportation of slaves from different parts of the world, mostly from the African continent to work in southern states of America on cash crop plantations that generated a great source of income. At some future period I will gladly avail myself of an opportunity to give this subject a full and fair discussion.Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country. 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. 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. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.. Her speed had faltered under the weight of her child and her chains! Over 150,000 persons were sold between 1820 and 1830, and over 300,000 were sold between 1850 and 1860.[15]. It esteems sacrifice above mercy; psalm-singing above right doing; solemn meetings above practical righteousness. 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. Your broad republican domain is hunting ground for men. ROY: The better we get to know the people that we live with, that we work around, that we see at the coffee shop, and the more we talk about these important racial issues with one another, the easier it will be to heal our divided communities. In a Fourth of July holiday special, we begin with the words of Frederick Douglass. Need I remind you that a similar thing is being done all over this country to-day? Douglass details the hardships past Americans once endured when they were members of British colonies and validates their feelings of ill treatment. [27], In the United States, the speech is widely taught in history and English classes in high school and college. Americans! 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. 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. So its important that our city and our society are outraged by the recent murders of unarmed black people. your republican politics, not less than your republican religion, are flagrantly inconsistent. 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. Standing, there, identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July! With brave men there is always a remedy for oppression. 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 minister of American justice is bound by the law to hear but one side; and that side, is the side of the oppressor. Frederick Douglass, ca 1855, Metropolitan Museum of Art. This Fourth [of] July is yours, not mine. 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. His own testimony is nothing. 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. Products. YOUR HANDS ARE FULL OF BLOOD; cease to do evil, learn to do well; seek judgment; relieve the oppressed; judge for the fatherless; plead for the widow.The American church is guilty, when viewed in connection with what it is doing to uphold slavery; but it is superlatively guilty when viewed in connection with its ability to abolish slavery. He praises them because they were great men. 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. They, however, gradually flow back to the same old channel, and flow on as serenely as ever. Ossie DavisA Voice Ringing O'er the Gale! They are food for the cotton-field, and the deadly sugar-mill. 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! that gash on her shoulder tells her to move on. 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. Douglass then pivots to the present, stating that "We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future". In 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act had passed Congress as part of the broader Compromise of 1850. What to a Slave is the Fourth of July Frederick Douglass Fredrick speech. 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! One of the biggest challenges we face in our present moment is building sustainable movements that fundamentally change peoples minds about race and racism. The audience must fulfill what the founders of the country advocated. To honor Black History Month, as an introduction or review of rhetorical appeals and devices, or as a speech exemplar, this Frederick Douglass "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July" rhetoric activity is a fabulous addition to any lesson. I lived on Philpot Street, Fells Point, Baltimore, and have watched from the wharves, the slave ships in the Basin, anchored from the shore, with their cargoes of human flesh, waiting for favorable winds to waft them down the Chesapeake. 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? [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]. 00 Comments Please sign inor registerto post comments. As the champions of oppressors, the chosen men of American theology have appearedmen, honored for their so-called piety, and their real learning. 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,. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. He wrote and presented a speech that challenged . The well-known speech was previously known as The Meaning of July the Fourth for the Negro. Later, the speech was re-titled based on Douglasss question, What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?. 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? 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