WebOn December 3, 1860, Frederick Douglass and a group of fellow abolitionists met at the Tremont Temple Baptist Church in Boston for a discussion centered around the following The Fugitive SlaveLawmakes mercy to them a crime; and bribes the judge who tries them. The anguish of my boyish heart was intense; and I was often consoled, when speaking to my mistress in the morning, to hear her say that the custom was very wicked; that she hated to hear the rattle of the chains, and the heart-rending cries. 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. From the slave prison to the ship, they are usually driven in the darkness of night; for since the antislavery agitation, a certain caution is observed. What then remains to be argued? 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, Its future might be shrouded in gloom, and the hope of its prophets go out in sorrow. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, not by me. A Nation's Story: What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? 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. R. R. Raymond) on the platform, are shining examples; and let me say further, that upon these men lies the duty to inspire our ranks with high religious faith and zeal, and to cheer us on in the great mission of the slaves redemption from his chains. In prosecuting the anti-slavery enterprise, we have been asked to spare the church, to spare the ministry; buthow, we ask, could such a thing be done? To me the American slave-trade is a terrible reality. It is a religion for oppressors, tyrants, man-stealers, andthugs. I answer: a day that reveals to him more than all other days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. Its the news, without the news. For who is there so cold that a nation sympathy cannot warm him, who so adore it and dead to the claims of gratitude that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? And it would go hard with that politician who presumed to solicit the votes of the people without inscribing this motto on his banner. Born to an enslaved family in 1818, Frederick Douglass never knew his actual birthday, a fact not uncommon for those enslaved. Is it not astonishing that while we are plowing, planting and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metal of brass, iron, copper, silver, and gold, that while we are reading, writing, and ciphering acting as clerks, merchants, and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators, and teachers that we are engaged in all the enterprises, common to other men, digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific feeding sheep and cattle on the hillside, living, moving, acting, thinking, planting, living in families as husbands, wives, and children, and above all confessing and worshiping the Christian God and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave. Nobody doubts it. The arm of the Lord is not shortened, and the doom of slavery is certain. 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. What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? The accepted time with God and his cause is the ever-living now. The papers and placards say, that I am to deliver a 4th [of] July oration. A RESTful API to access Revs workforce of fast, high quality transcriptionists and captioners. See, too, that girl of thirteen, weeping, yes! 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. Fellows citizens, pardon me and allow me to ask, why am I called to speak here today? To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding. I am not that man. The minister of American justice is bound by the law to hear butoneside; andthatside, is the side of the oppressor. Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation, as a matter beset with great difficulty, involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard to be understood? I think that, in whatever else I may be deficient, I have Go search where you will. There is blasphemy in the thought. 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 ofHimby whom they professed to be called to the ministry, deliberately taught us, against the example or the Hebrews and against the remonstrance of the Apostles, they teachthat we ought to obey mans law before the law of God. But the church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of the slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors. But neither their familiar faces, nor the perfect gage I think I have of Corinthian Hall, seems to free me from embarrassment. 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. Not for thieves and robbers, enemies of society, merely, but for men guilty of no crime. It is the antagonistic force in your government, the only thing that seriously disturbs and endangers yourUnion. Without this right, the liberty of an American citizen would be as insecure as that of a Frenchman. Is that a question for Republicans? What have I, or those I represent to do with your national independence. No nation can now shut itself up from the surrounding world, and trot round in the same old path of its fathers without interference. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. Yea! 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? On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? be warned! To all inspiring motives, to noble deeds which can be gained from the past, we are welcome. Frederick Douglass: (08:30) "What to the Slave is the 4th of July?" Speech Transcript Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? Need I remind you that a similar thing is being done all over this country to-day? For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. But, besides general considerations, there were peculiar circumstances which make the advent of this republic an event of special attractiveness. Who so stolid and selfish that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nations Jubilee when the chains of servitude have been torn from his limbs? Fully appreciating the hardship to be encountered, firmly believing in the right of their cause, honorably inviting the scrutiny of an on-looking world, reverently appealing to heaven to attest their sincerity, soundly comprehending the solemn responsibility they were about to assume, wisely measuring the terrible odds against them, your fathers, the fathers of this republic, did, most deliberately, under the inspiration of a glorious patriotism, and with a sublime faith in the great principles of justice and freedom, lay deep the corner-stone of the national superstructure, which has risen and still rises in grandeur around you. That point is conceded already. They did so in the form of a resolution; and as we seldom hit upon resolutions, drawn up in our day whose transparency is at all equal to this, it may refresh your minds and help my story if I read it. Many of its most eloquent Divines. Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? Frederick Douglass 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! The blessings in which you this day rejoice are not enjoyed in common. Then would my task be light and my burden easy and delightful? Industry-leading accurate legal transcription to ensure you dont miss a statement. The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro by Frederick Douglass Your fathers esteemed the English Government as the home government; and England as the fatherland. The time for such argument is past. You declare, before the world, and are understood by the world to declare, that you hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal; and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; and that, among these are, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and yet, you hold securely, in a bondage which, according to your own Thomas Jefferson, is worse than ages of that which your fathers rose in rebellion to oppose, aseventh partof the inhabitants of your country. The existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretence, and your Christianity as a lie. Great streams are not easily turned from channels, worn deep in the course of ages. Let this damning fact be perpetually told. Such people lived then, had lived before, and will, probably, ever have a place on this planet; and their course, in respect to any great change, (no matter how great the good to be attained, or the wrong to be redressed by it), may be calculated with as much precision as can be the course of the stars. Web"The Lessons of the Hour" Speech by Frederick Douglass, January 9, 1894 Friends and Fellow Citizens : No man should come before an audience like the one by whose presence I am now honored, without a noble object and a fixed and earnest purpose. Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood and stained with pollution is wrong? Suicide Note Revealed After Shocking Death, Mississippi Cops Beat, Waterboarded Handcuffed Black Men, Shot 1 For Dating White Women': Lawyers, Indicted! In the text it states, above all, confessing and worshipping the Christian God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave- we are called upon to prove that we are men? (Douglas 763). 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: Th oppressd shall vilely bend the knee. That people contented themselves under the shadow of Abrahams great name, while they repudiated the deeds which made his name great. 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? They felt themselves the victims of grievous wrongs, wholly incurable in their colonial capacity. Is it at the gateway? Mark them! But I admit, where all is plain, there is nothing to be argued. At a time like this, scorching irony not convincing argument is needed. Oppression makes a wise man mad. This, for the purpose of this celebration, is the 4th of July. I trust, however, that mine will not be so considered. I will show you a man-drover. The time was when such could be done. The task before me is one which requires much previous thought and study for its proper performance. Some of these have had wives and children, dependent on them for bread; but of this, no account was made. 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! In a very telling sign, the fateful words of Frederick Douglass from a speech he delivered 170 years ago still resonate very much in 2022 as Black people in America continue the fight for the same kind of equality that the legendary abolitionist was demanding back in the mid-19th century. They believed in order; but not in the order of tyranny. His own testimony is nothing. Heavy billows, like mountains in the distance, disclose to the leeward huge forms of flinty rocks! 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. I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slaves point of view. 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. Become a freelancer and work on your own terms. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost. Her speed had faltered under the weight of her child and her chains! Wind, steam, and lightning are its chartered agents. Frederick Douglass speech - PBS You live and must die, and you must do your work. Yet they persevered. I am not included within the pales of this glorious anniversary. that gash on her shoulder tells her to move on. In the deep still darkness of midnight, I have been often aroused by the dead heavy footsteps, and the piteous cries of the chained gangs that passed our door. Frederick Douglass: (07:35) Prayers are made, hymns are sung, and sermons are preached in honor of this day; while the quick martial tramp of a great and multitudinous nation, echoed back by all the hills, valleys and mountains of a vast continent, bespeak the occasion one of thrilling and universal interest a nations jubilee. Frederick Douglass Read the full transcript here. At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. Your cause would be much more likely to succeed. Frederick Douglass: (04:09) Oceans no longer divide, but link nations together. But I fancy, I hear some of my audience say it is just in this circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression upon the public mind. I have detained my audience entirely too long already. Douglass gave this speech to a group of abolitionists 168 years ago. 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 were great in their day and generation. I will not equivocate. Who can reason on such a proposition? From police shootings to the wage gap to crippling stereotypes (and everything in between), there are too many parallels today with what Douglass described in his speech to white America, including this relevant line: This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. Follow the drove to New Orleans. That which is inhuman, cannot be divine! What was possible for him, he sincerely believed was possible for any man who was willing to work hard. The crack you heard, was the sound of the slave-whip; the scream you heard, was from the woman you saw with the babe. A general shout would go up from the church, demanding repeal, repeal, instant repeal! He who will, intelligently, lay down his life for his country, is a man whom it is not in human nature to despise. WebA speech celebrating both Lincoln and African Americans freedom wrought by Lincoln. It was, Milloy continued, a critique of a nation that claimed to hold dear the principles of freedom, justice and equality even as it enslaved black people.. And the conscience of the nation must be roused. For it is not light that is needed, but fire. Juneteenth Reading List: 10 Books To Learn More About Black Independence Day, Your email will be shared with newsone.com and subject to its, The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro address before an audience, at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York, on July 5, 1852, he was issuing , a scathing indictment of American hypocrisy, Washington Post columnist Courtland Milloy, .
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