I scarcely need say, fellow-citizens, that my opinion of those measures fully accords with that of your fathers. The far off and almost fabulous Pacific rolls in grandeur at our feet. 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. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the lame man leap as an hart.. Is a matter, the set with great difficulty involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard to understand? Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has stronger nerves than I have. It is neither. 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.. Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? Their statesmanship looked beyond the passing moment, and stretched away in strength into the distant future. O! The population was weak and scattered, and the country a wilderness unsubdued. 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, The drove moves tardily. This is esteemed by some as a national trait perhaps a national weakness. My subject then, fellow citizens, is American slavery. Sign up for NewsOne's email newsletter! I think that, in whatever else I may be deficient, I have Where these are, man is not sacred. The madness of this course, we believe, is admitted now, even by England; but we fear the lesson is wholly lost on our present ruler. We are met on the threshold of our efforts for the redemption of the slave, by the church and ministry of the country, in battle arrayed against us; and we are compelled to fight or flee. You have no right to enjoy a childs share in the labor of your fathers, unless your children are to be blest by your labors. when ye make many prayers, I will not hear. I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slaves point of view. 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. 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. In several states, this trade is a chief source of wealth. What to the American slave is your 4th of July? 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. These gentlemen have, as I think, fully and clearly vindicated the Constitution from any design to support slavery for an hour. 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. That is a branch of knowledge in which you feel, perhaps, a much deeper interest than your speaker. These ministers make religion a cold and flinty-hearted thing, having neither principles of right action, nor bowels of compassion. 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. Now, there are certain rules of interpretation, for the proper understanding of all legal instruments. I shall see, this day, and its popular characteristics, from the slaves point of view. Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) was a social reformer and advocate, abolitionist, orator, writer, minister, and statesman. 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. Extend your content reach and maximize your engagement rates. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation Babylon, whose crimes towering up to heaven with thrown down by the breadth of the almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. But, with that blindness which seems to be the unvarying characteristic of tyrants, since Pharaoh and his hosts were drowned in the Red Sea, the British Government persisted in the exactions complained of. 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. Not for thieves and robbers, enemies of society, merely, but for men guilty of no crime. 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 Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe. Is it at the gateway? We need the storm. Would you have me argue that man is entitled to Liberty, that he is the rightful owner of his body? 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! Everybody can say it; the dastard, not less than the noble brave, can flippantly discant on the tyranny of England towards the American Colonies. Am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to Rob them of their Liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with ions, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? 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. Oh! The principles contained in that instrument are saving principles. Of this sort of change they are always strongly in favor. 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 feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced. Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to those questions. Read its preamble, consider its purposes. Fellow-citizens! 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. 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. If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. For black men there are neither law, justice, humanity, not religion. 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! 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. I will not excuse. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Three score years and ten is the allotted time for individual men; but nations number their years by thousands. your republican politics, not less than your republican religion, are flagrantly inconsistent. Their solid manhood stands out the more as we contrast it with these degenerate times. Is that a question for Republicans? Your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless, your shouts of Liberty and equality, hallow mocked, your prayers and hymns your sermons and Thanksgivings with all your religious parade in solemnity are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, a thin veil to cover up crimes, which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, who does not know that slavery is wrong for him. There, the question of emancipation was a high religious question. You may rejoice, I must mourn.. Copyright 2023 Interactive One, LLC. I am not that man. Your fathers esteemed the English Government as the home government; and England as the fatherland. When a child, my soul was often pierced with a sense of its horrors. My business, if I have any here today, is with the present. There were then no means of concert and combination, such as exist now. 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. With them, justice, liberty and humanity were final; not slavery and oppression. America is false to the past, false to the present and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Discover why Rev is the #1 speech-to-text service in the world. They have taught that man may, properly, be a slave; that the relation of master and slave is ordained of God; that to send back an escaped bondman to his master is clearly the duty of all the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ; and this horrible blasphemy is palmed off upon the world for Christianity. We thank you for taking the time to watch this community reading of Frederick Douglasss What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? Source: Blight, David. 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! 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. 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. 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. 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. I will not equivocate. In the summer of 2020, the U.S. commemorated Independence Day amid nationwide Its deeply moving to hear Douglass defend the honor of Black soldiers in his 1863 speech, The Proclamation And a Negro Army, read by Colman Domingo, while his final speech, 1894s Lessons of the Hour, lays out the crucial steps toward achieving equality that have yet to be followed today.The actor selected to read these words is I remember, also, that, as a people, Americans are remarkably familiar with all facts which make in their own favor. What to the Slave is the 4th of July? Speech Transcript by Frederick Douglass, Congressional Testimony & Hearing Transcripts. 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. and am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us? It was demanded, in the name of humanity, and according to the law of the living God. They were great in their day and generation. They petitioned and remonstrated; they did so in a decorous, respectful, and loyal manner. 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? It fetters your progress; it is the enemy of improvement, the deadly foe of education; it fosters pride; it breeds insolence; it promotes vice; it shelters crime; it is a curse to the earth that supports it; and yet, you cling to it, as if it were the sheet anchor of all your hopes. WebCelebrating 200 years of Frederick Douglass. WebIn this speech, Frederick Douglass reflected on how the outpouring of joy at the conclusion of the Civil War turned to mourning with Lincolns assassination. As noted here, that banquet was attended by prominent A feeling has crept over me, quite unfavorable to the exercise of my limited powers of speech. You could instruct me in regard to them. I was born amid such sights and scenes. 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. That trade has long since been denounced by this government, as piracy. WebOn January 9, 1894, at Washington, D.C.'s, Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church, Frederick Douglass delivered his "The Lessons of the Hour" speech, which addressed the In that instrument I hold there is neither warrant, license, nor sanction of the hateful thing; but, interpreted as it ought to be interpreted, the Constitution is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT. The iron shoe, and crippled foot of China must be seen, in contrast with nature. 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. Become a freelancer and work on your own terms. To arrest it, to put an end to it, this nation keeps a squadron, at immense cost, on the coast of Africa. WebBoth anniversaries remind us that the fight for independence and equality did not end in the 18th century - a theme highlighted in Douglass speech. But now is the time, the important time. It was fashionable, hundreds of years ago, for the children of Jacob to boast, we have Abraham to our father, when they had long lost Abrahams faith and spirit. Frederick Douglass: (01:08) 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. 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. They showed forbearance; but that they knew its limits. In their admiration of liberty, they lost sight of all other interests. Travel through South America. whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. WebDescription. That point is conceded already. 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. I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people! Senator Berrien tell us that the Constitution is the fundamental law, that which controls all others. Your fathers have lived, died, and have done their work, and have done much of it well. How unlike the politicians of an hour! May he not hope that high lessons of wisdom, of justice and of truth, will yet give direction to her destiny? 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. At the time of the delivery of this speech, Douglass had been living in Rochester, New York for several years editing a weekly abolitionist newspaper. He was invited to give a fourth of July speech by the Ladies Anti-Slavery Society of Rochester. In the early 1850s, tensions over slavery were high across the county. 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. 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. Racist Ex-University Of Kentucky 'Karen' Sophia Rosing Is Charged For Assaulting Black Student. Yet his monument is built up by the price of human blood, and the traders in the bodies and souls of men shout We have Washington toour father. Alas! The blessings in which you this day rejoice are not enjoyed in common. I am glad, fellow-citizens, that your nation is so young. 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, 1852, he was issuing a scathing indictment of American hypocrisy, Washington Post columnist Courtland Milloy reminded readers. The timid and the prudent (as has been intimated) of that day, were, of course, shocked and alarmed by it. I was glad to find one who sympathized with me in my horror. 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. 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.. Did this law concern the mint, anise, and cumin abridge the right to sing psalms, to partake of the sacrament, or to engage in any of the ceremonies of religion, it would be smitten by the thunder of a thousand pulpits. 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. They form the staple of your national poetry and eloquence. 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, . 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. The time for such argument is passed. The hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed and its crimes against God and man must be denounced. Transcript Descendants of Frederick Douglass read excerpts from one of his most famous speeches: What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? 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. Fair use is permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. It destroys your moral power abroad; it corrupts your politicians at home. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? It has been denounced with burning words, from the high places of the nation, as an execrable traffic. 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. My soul sickens at the sight. That I am here to-day is, to me, a matter of astonishment as well as of gratitude. But, besides general considerations, there were peculiar circumstances which make the advent of this republic an event of special attractiveness. weeping, as she thinks of the mother from whom she has been torn! WebAn excerpt from the 1847 Frederick Douglass speech given for the anniversary of the American Anti-Slavery Society. 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). At a time like this, scorching irony not convincing argument is needed. To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs and to chime in with the popular theme would be treason most sacrilegious and shocking and would make me a reproach before God and the world. That which is inhuman, cannot be divine! Oceans no longer divide, but link nations together. There are 72 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 these same crimes will subject a white man to like punishment. It is a slander upon their memory, at least, so I believe. It is a religion for oppressors, tyrants, man-stealers, andthugs. Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? In speaking of the American church, however, let it be distinctly understood that I mean the great mass of the religious organizations of our land. By an act of the American Congress, not yet two years old, slavery has been nationalized in its most horrible and revolting form. 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 Sharps, the Clarksons, the Wilberforces, the Buxtons, and Burchells and the Knibbs, were alike famous for their piety, and for their philanthropy. 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. Their conduct was wholly unexceptionable. But, to proceed. The causes which led to the separation of the colonies from the British crown have never lacked for a tongue. be warned! Should I seem at ease, my appearance would much misrepresent me. Seventy-six years, though a good old age for a man, is but a mere speck in the life of a nation. VIDEO: Frederick Douglass' descendants deliver his 'Fourth of July' speech. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, not by me. With head, and heart, and hand Ill strive, 8 Times Obama Showed Trump How Presidents Are Supposed To Celebrate The Fourth Of July, Welcome To The Cookout: 10 Lit Movies To Watch During July Fourth Holiday Weekend, 'Dilbert' Comic Creator Calls Black People A 'Hate Group,' Urges Segregation So Whites Can 'Escape', Bernie Mac Show Star Camille Winbush Is Not Ashamed Of Joining OnlyFans, Kyle Rittenhouse Faces 2nd Civil Lawsuit, Continues To Beg For Money From His Supporters, Ben Stein's 'Aunt Jemima' Rant Is A Master Class On White Privilege, Why Did tWitch Kill Himself? Follow the drove to New Orleans. I repeat, I am glad this is so. 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! Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? 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. They succeeded; and to-day you reap the fruits of their success. How can we sing the Lords song in a strange land? 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! The charter of our liberties, which every citizen has a personal interest in understanding thoroughly. If I do forget, if I do not 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. Resolved, That these united colonies are, and of right, ought to be free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown; and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, dissolved.. 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. You may rejoice. The flesh-mongers gather up their victims by dozens, and drive them, chained, to the general depot at Baltimore. 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.. Frederick Douglass: (06:44) Then, I dare to affirm, notwithstanding all I have said before, your fathers stooped, basely stooped. 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.