But neither their familiar faces, nor the perfect gage I think I have of Corinthian Hall, seems to free me from embarrassment. Were the nation older, the patriots heart might be sadder, and the reformers brow heavier. They are plain, common-sense rules, such as you and I, and all of us, can understand and apply, without having passed years in the study of law. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. Fellow citizens, this murderous traffic is, today, in active operation in this boasted republic. It is fashionable to do so; but there was a time when to pronounce against England, and in favor of the cause of the colonies, tried mens souls. Senator Berrien tell us that the Constitution is the fundamental law, that which controls all others. On the other hand it will be found to contain principles and purposes, entirely hostile to the existence of slavery. Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe. Behold the practical operation of this internal slave-trade, the American slave-trade, sustained by American politics and America religion. WebOn 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 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. He rose from the shackles of slavery to become an author, newspaper publisher, and respected abolitionist. 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! Its quite a remarkable speech as Douglass in a way reenacts his own journey in appreciation for the work that Lincoln did, not just for blacks, but for whites in this country. But I fancy I hear some one of my audience say, it is just in this circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind. There I see the tenderest ties ruthlessly broken, to gratify the lust, caprice and rapacity of the buyers and sellers of men. 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. Fellow-citizens, I shall not presume to dwell at length on the associations that cluster about this day. Citizens, your fathers made good that resolution. Create a better, more engaging experience for every student. 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. From Boston to London is now a holiday excursion. With them, justice, liberty and humanity were final; not slavery and oppression. That year will come, and freedoms reign. who stand as the very lights of the church, have shamelessly given the sanction of religion and the Bible to the whole slave system. As with rivers so with nations. Frederick Douglass: (10:31) This trade is one of the peculiarities of American institutions. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. I will use the severest language I can command. Yea! With them, nothing was settled that was not right. 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. The hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed and its crimes against God and man must be denounced. 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. Ex-Senator Benton tells us that the price of men was never higher than now. In a final celebratory post for Black History Month 2023, it is worth returning to the 1883 Douglass Banquet. They strip the love of God of its beauty, and leave the throng of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form. For it is not light that is needed, but fire. 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. Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience nor grace my speech with any high sounding exordium. WebFrederick Douglass speech What to a Slave is the Fourth of July effectively argues against slavery. Fellow-citizens! Read its preamble, consider its purposes. I will not equivocate. Washington could not die till he had broken the chains of his slaves. 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, andlet the weight of twenty millions crush and destroy it forever! On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? On July 5, 1852, eminent African American abolitionist Frederick Douglass delivered a brilliant speech to nearly six hundred people filling Rochester, New Yorks Corinthian Hall, as organized by the Rochester Ladies Anti-Slavery Sewing Society. Yea! That, which is inhuman cannot be divine. Frederick Douglass: (00:26) There, the question of emancipation was a high religious question. He rose from the shackles of slavery to become an author, You invite to your shores fugitives of oppression from abroad, honor them with banquets, greet them with ovations, cheer them, toast them, salute them, protect them, and pour out your money to them like water; but the fugitives from your own land you advertise, hunt, arrest, shoot and kill. WebIn the late 1860sat a moment of great hope for the promise of equality under the lawthe famed orator and once-enslaved abolitionist Frederick Douglass took his Our Composite Nation speech on the road to argue for a plural American democracy. What? Standing here identified with the American bondsmen, making his wrongs mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.. "What to the Slave is the 4th of July?" For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. There were then no means of concert and combination, such as exist now. Their solid manhood stands out the more as we contrast it with these degenerate times. 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. What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible being? The crack you heard, was the sound of the slave-whip; the scream you heard, was from the woman you saw with the babe. Under Title 17 U.S.C. You will not, therefore, be surprised, if in what I have to say I evince no elaborate preparation, nor grace my speech with any high sounding exordium. Translated on-screen subtitles for videos. They were not the men to look back. According to this fact, you are, even now, only in the beginning of your national career, still lingering in the period of childhood. You have already declared it. The Sharps, the Clarksons, the Wilberforces, the Buxtons, and Burchells and the Knibbs, were alike famous for their piety, and for their philanthropy. Born to an enslaved family in 1818, Frederick Douglass never knew his actual birthday, a fact not uncommon for those enslaved. My subject, then fellow-citizens, is AMERICAN SLAVERY. There are exceptions, and I thank God that there are. 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. You can bare your bosom to the storm of British artillery to throw off a threepenny tax on tea; and yet wring the last hard-earned farthing from the grasp of the black laborers of your country. Your fathers have lived, died, and have done their work, and have done much of it well. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. 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. Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. Here you will see men and women reared like swine for the market. 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. Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetual remembrance. Everybody can say it; the dastard, not less than the noble brave, can flippantly discant on the tyranny of England towards the American Colonies. Make your content more accessible to people with disabilities. WebA speech celebrating both Lincoln and African Americans freedom wrought by Lincoln. The population was weak and scattered, and the country a wilderness unsubdued. be warned! Her speed had faltered under the weight of her child and her chains! A RESTful API to access Revs workforce of fast, high quality transcriptionists and captioners. They were quiet men; but they did not shrink from agitating against oppression. In their admiration of liberty, they lost sight of all other interests. 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. Easily integrate Rev using our robust APIs to start building your product quickly. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? But now is the time, the important time. If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. that gash on her shoulder tells her to move on. Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? The sin of which it is guilty is one of omission as well as of commission. What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible being? 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. here lies the merit, and the one which, of all others, seems unfashionable in our day. Section 107, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. When you can point to any such laws in reference to the beasts of the field, then I may consent to argue the manhood of the slave. 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 and question and to denounce with all the emphasis I can command everything that serves to perpetuate slavery, the great sin and shame of America. 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! 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! 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. To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding. The 4th of July is the first great fact in your nations history the very ring-bolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny. They were peace men; but they preferred revolution to peaceful submission to bondage. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the lame man leap as an hart.. For 186 years this doctrine of national independence has shaken the globeand it remains the most powerful force anywhere in the world today. The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong city. Space is comparatively annihilated. Fair use is permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? Towards the end of No! Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? They loved their country better than their own private interests; and, though this is not the highest form of human excellence, all will concede that it is a rare virtue, and that when it is exhibited, it ought to command respect. A speech given at Rochester, New York, July 5, 1852 . The propriety of the nation must be startled. 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 speaking of it, relatively and positively, negatively and affirmatively? Who can reason on such a proposition? Need I remind you that a similar thing is being done all over this country to-day? Speech Transcript The greatest and best of British statesmen admitted its justice, and the loftiest eloquence of the British Senate came to its support. They may also rise in wrath and fury, and bear away, on their angry waves, the accumulated wealth of years of toil and hardship. 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. They showed forbearance; but that they knew its limits. We need the storm. 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. 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? Calculate how much it costs to transcribe, caption, or subtitle your content. Would you argue more and denounce less? The document is in the form of a Google Docs so it has a translation tool, dictionary, and voice to text. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, not by me. 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. I cannot. Americans! Discover why Rev is the #1 speech-to-text service in the world. that it should be so; yet so it is. 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. 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. Not for thieves and robbers, enemies of society, merely, but for men guilty of no crime. It is a religion for oppressors, tyrants, man-stealers, andthugs. Get a weekly digest of the weeks most important transcripts in your inbox. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. This, however, did not answer the purpose. It carries your minds back to the day, and to the act of your great deliverance; and to the signs, and to the wonders, associated with that act, and that day. Many of its most eloquent Divines. Sign up for NewsOne's email newsletter! Web" 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 During 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. If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. Frederick Douglass: (04:09) Your President, your Secretary of State, ourlords,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. Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.. That he is the rightful owner of his own body? when ye make many prayers, I will not hear. Though a biting welcome atheism! The population of the country, at the time, stood at the insignificant number of three millions. The drove moves tardily. I trust, however, that mine will not be so considered. Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? When Douglass delivered his famous The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro address before an audience at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York, on July 5, Some of these have had wives and children, dependent on them for bread; but of this, no account was made. To arrest it, to put an end to it, this nation keeps a squadron, at immense cost, on the coast of Africa. Your lawmakers have commanded all good citizens to engage in this hellish sport. I shall see, this day, and its popular characteristics, from the slaves point of view. Albert Barnes but uttered what the common sense of every man at all observant of the actual state of the case will receive as truth, when he declared that There is no power out of the church that could sustain slavery an hour, if it were not sustained in it.. What then remains to be argued? Douglass views the monument and the day's ceremonies as reflecting honor upon African 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. Become a freelancer and work on your own terms. 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. Frederick Douglass Read the full transcript here. Roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world. Full transcript of the famous speech What to the Slave is the 4th of July? by Frederick Douglass. 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. 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. But, besides general considerations, there were peculiar circumstances which make the advent of this republic an event of special attractiveness. 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. 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, With little experience and with less learning, I have been able to throw my thoughts hastily and imperfectly together; and trusting to your patient and generous indulgence, I will proceed to lay them before you. The arm of the Lord is not shortened, and the doom of slavery is certain. WebDescription. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery. Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood and stained with pollution is wrong? The Bible addresses all such persons as scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, who pay tithe ofmint, anise,andcumin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith.. 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! I was glad to find one who sympathized with me in my horror. The feeling of the nation must be quickened. But, such is not the state of the case. Cling to this day cling to it, and to its principles, with the grasp of a storm-tossed mariner to a spar at midnight. Suicide Note Revealed After Shocking Death, Mississippi Cops Beat, Waterboarded Handcuffed Black Men, Shot 1 For Dating White Women': Lawyers, Indicted! Who so stolid and selfish, that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nations jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? They seized upon eternal principles, and set a glorious example in their defense. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. 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, andnota vital principle, requiring active benevolence, justice, love and good will towards man. Let the religious press, the pulpit, the Sunday school, the conference meeting, the great ecclesiastical, missionary, Bible and tract associations of the land array their immense powers against slavery and slave-holding; and the whole system of crime and blood would be scattered to the winds; and that they do not do this involves them in the most awful responsibility of which the mind can conceive. Wind, steam, and lightning are its chartered agents. But I differ from those who charge this baseness on the framers of the Constitution of the United States. This is the inevitable conclusion, and from it there is no escape.

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