I will not equivocate; I will not excuse;. 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. Who can reason on such a proposition? Your fathers have lived, died, and have done their work, and have done much of it well. "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? 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. 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. speaking of it relatively, and positively, negatively, and affirmatively. His very existence gave the lie to slave owners: with dignity and great intelligence he bore witness to the brutality of slavery. This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. They felt themselves the victims of grievous wrongs, wholly incurable in their colonial capacity. 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. 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. 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. 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. Of this sort of change they are always strongly in favor. It is carried on in all the large towns and cities in one-half of this confederacy; and millions are pocketed every year, by dealers in this horrid traffic. [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. You may rejoice, I must mourn. [5] Many copies of one section of it, beginning in paragraph 32, have been circulated online. 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. 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. Senator Berrien tell us that the Constitution is the fundamental law, that which controls all others. The iron shoe, and crippled foot of China must be seen, in contrast with nature. 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. The little experience I have had in addressing public meetings, in country schoolhouses, avails me nothing on the present occasion. Douglass was a former slave of the 19th century and soon became a leader during the Abolitionist Movement. 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. Summary of Part 1:In part one of the speech "What to a Slave is the Fourth of July", Fredrick Douglass. What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.Fellow-citizens; above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! Rhetorical Analysis Of Harvey Fourth Of July. To me the American slave-trade is a terrible reality. 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. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. You may rejoice, I must mourn. 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. 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. Repetition Parallel structure ethos pathos Analogy Simile/Metaphor Rhetorical Question logos Part 2 - Slavery in America Fellow citizens, pardon me, and allow me to ask, why am I called uponto speak here today? To . This home government, you know, although a considerable distance from your home, did, in the exercise of its parental prerogatives, impose upon its colonial children, such restraints, burdens and limitations, as, in its mature judgment, it deemed wise, right and proper. 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,. 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. [17] This act drew the ire of the abolitionist movement,[9] and was directly criticized by Douglass in his speech. I will show you a man-drover. . one of the most important speeches of the 19th century? 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 am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. 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. Summary: "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" In "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?", otherwise known as "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro," Frederick Douglassoutlines a careful argument against the institution of slavery and more specifically the Fugitive Slave Act. [13] Although the import of people directly from Africa had been banned in 1807,[14] the domestic slave trade, still legal, was thriving. 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? See this drove sold and separated forever; and never forget the deep, sad sobs that arose from that scattered multitude. [4], The speech "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" 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. Table of Contents. It is neither. They strip the love of God of its beauty, and leave the throng of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form. 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. Alison Drasner, the project coordinator for the Somerville Museum, teamed up with Dave Ortega at the Somerville Media Center to prerecord voices of 50 Somerville residents, including my 7-year-old daughter, Charlotte, to read sections of the speech. Tell me citizens, WHERE, under the sun, you can witness a spectacle more fiendish and shocking. He further says, the Constitution, in its words, is plain and intelligible, and is meant for the home-bred, unsophisticated understandings of our fellow-citizens. 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. For black men there are neither law, justice, humanity, not religion. 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. 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. According to this fact, you are, even now, only in the beginning of your national career, still lingering in the period of childhood. Heavy billows, like mountains in the distance, disclose to the leeward huge forms of flinty rocks! We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. Born into slavery around 1818, Douglass became a key leader of the abolitionist movement. You know what is a swine-drover? GAZETTE: This is your second year as host of Reading Frederick Douglass Together in Somerville. Douglass also stresses the view that slaves and free Americans are equal in nature. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. $ 3.60. 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. Read its preamble, consider its purposes. 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. Three score years and ten is the allotted time for individual men; but nations number their years by thousands. 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. Need I remind you that a similar thing is being done all over this country to-day? 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. your republican politics, not less than your republican religion, are flagrantly inconsistent. 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! Yea! In the second part of the speech, Douglass turns to the present and his own feelings about the 4th of July . 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. Genius is the ultimate source of music knowledge, created by scholars like you who share facts and insight about the songs and artists they love. Initially mentored by William Lloyd Garrison, Douglass I hold that every American citizen has a fight to form an opinion of the constitution, and to propagate that opinion, and to use all honorable means to make his opinion the prevailing one. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. In a Fourth of July holiday special, we hear the words of Frederick Douglass. [11] Additionally, he had spoken there less than three months prior to this speech, on March 25. This page was last edited on 5 February 2023, at 19:31. Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. 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. And instead of being the honest men I have before declared them to be, they were the veriest imposters that ever practiced on mankind. What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? Knowledge is becoming more readily available, Douglass said, and soon the American people will open their eyes to the atrocities they have been inflicting on their fellow Americans. These rules are well established. that he is the rightful owner of his own body? 2. Yea! GAZETTE: Why is it important to do this kind of community-building work at a local level? On the other hand it will be found to contain principles and purposes, entirely hostile to the existence of slavery.I have detained my audience entirely too long already. The Celestial Empire, the mystery of ages, is being solved. The founding fathers left black people and women out of these rights for "everyone." There are exceptions, and I thank God that there are. The speech notes the contradiction of the national ethos of United States and the way enslaved persons are treated. Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, is wrong? 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. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. 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. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably work The downfall of slavery. There, the question of emancipation was a high religious question. That people contented themselves under the shadow of Abrahams great name, while they repudiated the deeds which made his name great. Yet his monument is built up by the price of human blood, and the traders in the bodies and souls of men shoutWe have Washington to our father.Alas! Your broad republican domain is hunting ground for men. True Christians, according to Douglass, should not stand idly by while the rights and liberty of others are stripped away. That point is conceded already. 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. 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. It is neither. 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 argues that the Constitution does not permit slavery, contrary to the claims of contemporary defenders of the institution. [19]. [20]:344. Text Frederick Douglass, " What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? It is a religion for oppressors, tyrants, man-stealers, and thugs. That bolt drawn, that chain broken, and all is lost. 00 Comments Please sign inor registerto post comments. [5], A statue of Douglass erected in Rochester in 2018 was torn down on July 5, 2020the 168th anniversary of the speech. 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! 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. ROY:One of the things that Douglass writings shows us is that he believed in amplifying a variety of voices. PDF. [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. Many of its most eloquent Divines. Douglass referred not only to the captivity of enslaved people, but to the merciless exploitation and the cruelty and torture that slaves were subjected to in the United States. (1982). 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! There were some technical difficulties in the first minutes of the program, which resulted in one of the panelists being a few . 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. He describes the legislation as "tyrannical," and believes that it is in "violation of justice.". official permission or approval. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetual remembrance. In a Fourth of July holiday special, we begin with the words of Frederick Douglass. You have no right to wear out and waste the hard-earned fame of your fathers to cover your indolence. Nations do not now stand in the same relation to each other that they did ages ago. With brave men there is always a remedy for oppression. 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. be warned! That trade has long since been denounced by this government, as piracy. Douglass then returns to the topic of the founding of the United States. 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? Random House. Some of these have had wives and children, dependent on them for bread; but of this, no account was made. The timid and the prudent (as has been intimated) of that day, were, of course, shocked and alarmed by it. On July 5, 1852, in . 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! The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. In that speech, he cast the abolitionist movement as being engaged in a "War" against defenders of slavery. Mark the sad procession, as it moves wearily along, and the inhuman wretch who drives them. The United States does not have to stay the way it is. 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. 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. The audience must fulfill what the founders of the country advocated. Where these go, may also go the merciless slave-hunter. 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. 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. Your fathers were wise men, and if they did not go mad, they became restive under this treatment. [8] Frederick Douglass had moved to Rochester in 1847 in order to publish his newspaper The North Star. [20]:345He also attempts to demonstrate the irony of their inability to sympathize with the Black people they oppressed in cruel ways that the forefathers they valorized never experienced. There are illustrations of it near and remote, ancient and modern. The cause of liberty may be stabbed by the men who glory in the deeds of your fathers. 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. Great Britain, and many other countries of that time, had already abolished slavery from its territories. They may sometimes rise in quiet and stately majesty, and inundate the land, refreshing and fertilizing the earth with their mysterious properties. 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. 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. "[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. 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. But, with that blindness which seems to be the unvarying characteristic of tyrants, since Pharaoh and his hosts were drowned in the Red Sea. But I differ from those who charge this baseness on the framers of the Constitution of the United States. Frederick Douglass, born a slave and later the most influential African American leader of the 1800s, addresses the hypocrisy of the US of maintaining slavery with its upheld ideals being freedom and independence on July 4th, 1852. 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. You discourse eloquently on the dignity of labor; yet, you sustain a system which, in its very essence, casts a stigma upon labor. Your President, your Secretary of State, your lords, 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. He implored the Rochester, N.Y., audience to think about the ongoing oppression of Black Americans during a holiday celebrating . Wind, steam, and lightning are its chartered agents. 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! What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? It is said that America is built on the idea of liberty and freedom, but Douglass tells his audience that more than anything, it is built on inconsistencies and hypocrisies that have been overlooked for so long they appear to be truths. I repeat, I am glad this is so. or is it in the temple? "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" remains one of the most effective and poignant condemnations of slavery in the canon of American abolitionist literature, a tribute to the moral character and oratorical skills of Frederick Douglass. [9][10] He had previously lived in Boston, but did not want his newspaper to interfere with sales of The Liberator, published by William Lloyd Garrison. Frederick Douglass, ca 1855, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Oh! 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Leader during the abolitionist movement seen, in contrast with nature began, with.. Meetings, in country schoolhouses, avails me nothing on the part of most! 19Th century and soon became a leader during the abolitionist movement of voices brought stripes and death me... The shadow of Abrahams great name, while they repudiated the deeds which made his name great the program which... Are its chartered agents may also go the merciless slave-hunter but thunder spectacle more fiendish and.... Are neither law, justice, humanity, not less than your republican religion, are inconsistent! Had in addressing public meetings, in country schoolhouses, avails me nothing on the framers of the of... Quiet and stately majesty, and the earthquake people of God 5 February 2023, at.! Ongoing oppression of black Americans during a holiday celebrating earth with their mysterious properties under this treatment does! Republican domain is hunting ground for men this baseness on the framers of the founding of the is! Of grievous wrongs, wholly incurable in their colonial capacity, & quot ; what the... Deep, sad sobs that arose from that scattered multitude a variety of what to the slave is the fourth of july annotation! Seventy-Six years, though a good old age for a man, is your 4th of?.
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