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I scout the idea that the question of the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of slavery is not a question for the people. 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. Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation? By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Behold the practical operation of this internal slave-trade, the American slave-trade, sustained by American politics and America religion. Many of its most eloquent Divines. here lies the merit, and the one which, of all others, seems unfashionable in our day. What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? It is admitted in the fact that Southern statute books are covered with enactments forbidding under severe fines and penalties, the teaching of the slave to read and write. Were the nation older, the patriots heart might be sadder, and the reformers brow heavier. They felt themselves the victims of grievous wrongs, wholly incurable in their colonial capacity. Towards the end of In a final celebratory post for Black History Month 2023, it is worth returning to the 1883 Douglass Banquet. The simple story of it is that, 76 years ago, the people of this country were British subjects. 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. The drove moves tardily. My subject, then fellow-citizens, is AMERICAN SLAVERY. The papers and placards say, that I am to deliver a 4th [of] July oration. 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. No, I will not. 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. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, not by me. For it is not light that is needed, but fire. Her speed had faltered under the weight of her child and her chains! 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. Do you mean citizens to mock me by asking me to speak today? in preference to the gospel,as preached by those Divines! I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the ring-bolt to the chain of your nations destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. That, which is inhuman cannot be divine. Nobody doubts it. You may rejoice, I must mourn.. Douglass gave this speech to a group of abolitionists 168 years ago. His own testimony is nothing. will be found by Americans. Their statesmanship looked beyond the passing moment, and stretched away in strength into the distant future. The message of Frederick Douglasss 1852 speech on the contradiction of Americas just ideals and unjust realities endures. The document is in the form of a Google Docs so it has a translation tool, dictionary, and voice to text. Follow the drove to New Orleans. There is not a nation of the earth, guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody than are the people of these United States at this very hour. 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? And the conscience of the nation must be roused. That he is the rightful owner of his own body? They inhabit all our Southern States. WebAn excerpt from the 1847 Frederick Douglass speech given for the anniversary of the American Anti-Slavery Society. Your fathers staked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, on the cause of their country. Copyright 2023 Interactive One, LLC. On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? 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! 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. 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. 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 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? It is a religion for oppressors, tyrants, man-stealers, andthugs. Now, there are certain rules of interpretation, for the proper understanding of all legal instruments. Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe. 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. 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 I am not that man. The country was poor in the munitions of war. Discover why Rev is the #1 speech-to-text service in the world. 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. 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 in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery the great sin and shame of America! Then would my task be light and my burden easy and delightful? Calculate how much it costs to transcribe, caption, or subtitle your content. 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! WebCelebrating 200 years of Frederick Douglass. They were not the men to look back. Read its preamble, consider its purposes. 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. Space is comparatively annihilated. 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. Of this fundamental work, this day is the anniversary. Ex-Vice-President Dallas tells us that the Constitution is an object to which no American mind can be too attentive, and no American heart too devoted. They who did so were accounted in their day, plotters of mischief, agitators and rebels, dangerous men. Americans! Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? A feeling has crept over me, quite unfavorable to the exercise of my limited powers of speech. that it should be so; yet so it is. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. Your fathers esteemed the English Government as the home government; and England as the fatherland. 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 seized upon eternal principles, and set a glorious example in their defense. 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! With them, nothing was settled that was not right. An American judge gets ten dollars for every victim he consigns to slavery, and five, when he fails to do so. 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. How can we sing the Lords song in a strange land? 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 Washington could not die till he had broken the chains of his slaves. This is a primary source reading analysis of Frederick Douglass' famous speech. I will not. What to the Slave is the 4th of July? Speech Transcript by Frederick Douglass, Congressional Testimony & Hearing Transcripts. 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. I say it with a sad sense of disparity between us. welcome atheism! 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. 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. I think that, in whatever else I may be deficient, I have For my part, I would say, welcome infidelity! Wind, steam, and lightning are its chartered agents. Build with the best speech-to-text APIs around. Under Title 17 U.S.C. your republican politics, not less than your republican religion, are flagrantly inconsistent. Get a weekly digest of the weeks most important transcripts in your inbox. 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, Senator Berrien tell us that the Constitution is the fundamental law, that which controls all others. 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. It would, certainly, prove nothing, as to what part I might have taken, had I lived during the great controversy of 1776. 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. What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible being? Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to those questions. Let this damning fact be perpetually told. The charter of our liberties, which every citizen has a personal interest in understanding thoroughly. 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. Copyright 2023 Interactive One, LLC. who stand as the very lights of the church, have shamelessly given the sanction of religion and the Bible to the whole slave system. The manhood of the slave is conceded. The far off and almost fabulous Pacific rolls in grandeur at our feet. Fellow-citizens! WebFrederick Douglass, July 5, 1852 INTRODUCTION (Exordium) 1. It has made itself the bulwark of American slavery, and the shield of American slave-hunters. Your lawmakers have commanded all good citizens to engage in this hellish sport. They showed forbearance; but that they knew its limits. Here you will see men and women reared like swine for the market. If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. 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. 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. May of Syracuse, and my esteemed friend (Rev. 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, There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, who does not know that slavery is wrong for him. Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. He is a bird for the sportsmans gun. Is a matter, the set with great difficulty involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard to understand? WebA speech celebrating both Lincoln and African Americans freedom wrought by Lincoln. 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! The time for such argument is passed. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. Yea! 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. 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. 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 arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong city. Would you argue more and denounce less? This celebration also marks the beginning of another year of your national life; and reminds you that the Republic of America is now 76 years old. You have already declared it. The right of the hunter to his prey stands superior to the right of marriage, and toallrights in this republic, the rights of God included! They were quiet men; but they did not shrink from agitating against oppression. If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. 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. The anti-slavery movementtherewas 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 of a hostile position towards that movement. I must mourn. For 186 years this doctrine of national independence has shaken the globeand it remains the most powerful force anywhere in the world today. Fellows citizens, pardon me and allow me to ask, why am I called to speak here today? Frederick Douglass: (05:02) Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood and stained with pollution is wrong? This trade is one of the peculiarities of American institutions. I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies. You are all on fire at the mention of liberty for France or for Ireland; but are as cold as an iceberg at the thought of liberty for the enslaved of America. At some future period I will gladly avail myself of an opportunity to give this subject a full and fair discussion. Citizens, your fathers made good that resolution. The flesh-mongers gather up their victims by dozens, and drive them, chained, to the general depot at Baltimore. As noted here, that banquet was attended by prominent They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. WATCH VIDEO: Should Black Americans Celebrate Independence Day? 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 in sacrilegious irony. 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. Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. 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. In a final celebratory post for Black History Month 2023, it is worth returning to the 1883 Douglass Banquet. A speech given at Rochester, New York, July 5, 1852 . From Boston to London is now a holiday excursion. It is a fact, that whatever makes for the wealth or for the reputation of Americans, and can be had cheap! Without this right, the liberty of an American citizen would be as insecure as that of a Frenchman. 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. Is it at the gateway? Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? How unlike the politicians of an hour! 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. Cast one glance, if you please, upon that young mother, whose shoulders are bare to the scorching sun, her briny tears falling on the brow of the babe in her arms. On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? be warned! 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! This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. 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. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery. What have I, or those I represent to do with your national independence. Born to an enslaved family in 1818, Frederick Douglass never knew his actual birthday, a fact not uncommon for those enslaved. To all inspiring motives, to noble deeds which can be gained from the past, we are welcome. Everywhere, in this country, it is safe to speak of this foreign slave-trade, as a most inhuman traffic, opposed alike to the laws of God and of man. But, such is not the state of the case. They, that can, may. Like our content? 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. Douglass views the monument and the day's ceremonies as reflecting honor upon African 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. 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. WebDescription. On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass gave a speech at an Independence Day celebration organized by the Rochester Ladies Anti-Slavery Society. 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. What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible being? Mark the sad procession, as it moves wearily along, and the inhuman wretch who drives them. 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. Become a freelancer and work on your own terms. Your broad republican domain is hunting ground formen. That is a branch of knowledge in which you feel, perhaps, a much deeper interest than your speaker. 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. Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. 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. or is it in the temple? The population was weak and scattered, and the country a wilderness unsubdued. In several states, this trade is a chief source of wealth. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. 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. Hear his savage yells and his blood-chilling oaths, as he hurries on his affrighted captives! There are illustrations of it near and remote, ancient and modern. Frederick Douglass: (10:31) 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. But a change has now come over the affairs of mankind.