I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Without this fight, the liberty of an American citizen would be as insecure as that of a Frenchman. 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. GAZETTE: This is your second year as host of Reading Frederick Douglass Together in Somerville. The minister of American justice is bound by the law to hear but one side; and that side, is the side of the oppressor. Interview was lightly edited for clarity and length. Douglass details the hardships past Americans once endured when they were members of British colonies and validates their feelings of ill treatment. 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. That bolt drawn, that chain broken, and all is lost. The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong city. There I see the tenderest ties ruthlessly broken, to gratify the lust, caprice and rapacity of the buyers and sellers of men. To all inspiring motives, to noble deeds which can be gained from the past, we are welcome. 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. Would you argue more, and denounce less, would you persuade more, and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed. Attend the auction; see men examined like horses; see the forms of women rudely and brutally exposed to the shocking gaze of American slave-buyers. For black men there are neither law, justice, humanity, not religion. speaking of it relatively, and positively, negatively, and affirmatively. I will not equivocate; I will not excuse; I will use the severest language I can command; and yet not one word shall escape me that any man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a slaveholder, shall not confess to be right and just.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. 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. Douglass also stresses the view that slaves and free Americans are equal in nature. In July of 1852, Frederick Douglass prepares a speech known as The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro. Hear his savage yells and his blood-chilling oaths, as he hurries on his affrighted captives! 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. Born into slavery around 1818, Douglass became a key leader of the abolitionist movement. He thinks they were extremely intelligent, and the thinks it is admirable that when they realized they were oppressed by Britain, they rebelled. One of the biggest challenges we face in our present moment is building sustainable movements that fundamentally change peoples minds about race and racism. [8] Frederick Douglass had moved to Rochester in 1847 in order to publish his newspaper The North Star. 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. Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe. 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. Nobody doubts it. The cause of liberty may be stabbed by the men who glory in the deeds of your fathers. 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. [16] Additionally, it awarded $10 to a judge who sentenced an individual to return to enslavement, while awarding only $5 if the claim was dismissed. No! What is now known as the "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" speech was delivered on July 5, 1852 as an address to the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society in Rochester, New York. You know what is a swine-drover? Not for thieves and robbers, enemies of society, merely, but for men guilty of no crime. 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. The Oratory of Fr. Random House. Americans! Stauffer, John. You profess to believe that, of one blood, God made all nations of men to dwell on the face of all the earth, and hath commanded all men, everywhere to love one another; yet you notoriously hate, (and glory in your hatred), all men whose skins are not colored like your own. What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? There, the question of emancipation was a high religious question. (1982). in preference to the gospel, as preached by those Divines! He describes the legislation as "tyrannical," and believes that it is in "violation of justice.". He is a bird for the sportsmans gun. It destroys your moral power abroad; it corrupts your politicians at home. What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? 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. I do not remember ever to have appeared as a speaker before any assembly more. [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. 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. the feeling of despair in the face of obstacles. Mark the sad procession, as it moves wearily along, and the inhuman wretch who drives them. 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. 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. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. This year is pretty challenging in the wake of COVID-19, and the event is going to be held online instead of before a live audience like we did last year. 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. To the slave, Douglass tells the audience, "your 4th of July is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license [for enslaving blacks] . His very existence gave the lie to slave owners: with dignity and great intelligence he bore witness to the brutality of slavery. The drove moves tardily. Products. 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! Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? I scout the idea that the question of the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of slavery is not a question for the people. 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. The anti-slavery movement there was not an anti-church movement, for the reason that the church took its full share in prosecuting that movement: and the anti-slavery movement in this country will cease to be an anti-church movement, when the church of this country shall assume a favorable, instead or a hostile position towards that movement. The Fugitive Slave Law makes mercy to them a crime; and bribes the judge who tries them. In a Fourth of July holiday special, we begin with the words of Frederick Douglass. ARI . 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. Your fathers esteemed the English Government as the home government; and England as the fatherland. He argues that the Constitution does not permit slavery, contrary to the claims of contemporary defenders of the institution. 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. You live and must die, and you must do your work. 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. Douglass argues that religion is the center of the problem but also the main solution to it. 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. 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. The testimony of Senator Breese, Lewis Cass, and many others that might be named, who are everywhere esteemed as sound lawyers, so regard the constitution. That point is conceded already. Africa must rise and put on her yet unwoven garment. They strip the love of God of its beauty, and leave the throng of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form. But, with that blindness which seems to be the unvarying characteristic of tyrants, since Pharaoh and his hosts were drowned in the Red Sea. They went so far in their excitement as to pronounce the measures of government unjust, unreasonable, and oppressive, and altogether such as ought not to be quietly submitted to. 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. [13] Although the import of people directly from Africa had been banned in 1807,[14] the domestic slave trade, still legal, was thriving. O! He celebrates the efforts of the founding fathers of America for fighting back against the tyranny of England.[18]. 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. See this drove sold and separated forever; and never forget the deep, sad sobs that arose from that scattered multitude. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? 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. whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. Ossie DavisA Voice Ringing O'er the Gale! No nation can now shut itself up from the surrounding world, and trot round in the same old path of its fathers without interference. 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! By an act of the American Congress, not yet two years old, slavery has been nationalized in its most horrible and revolting form. (3) $3.99. [12], According to the 1850 Census, there were around 3.2 million enslaved persons in the United States. 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. Ever ready to drink, to treat, and to gamble. The little experience I have had in addressing public meetings, in country schoolhouses, avails me nothing on the present occasion. [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. When a child, my soul was often pierced with a sense of its horrors. 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