In a Fourth of July holiday special, we hear the words of Frederick Douglass. These ministers make religion a cold and flinty-hearted thing, having neither principles of right action, nor bowels of compassion. The speech has been notably performed or read by important figures, including the following: The paragraphing referenced here is taken from an edition of the speech at, African Americans In Congress: A Documentary History, by Eric Freedman and Stephen A, Jones, 2008, p. 39, "Activist Public Relations and the Paradox of the Positive: A Case Study of Frederick Douglass's Fourth of July Address", "One of American History's Worst Laws Was Passed 165 Years Ago", "The Operation of the Fugitive Slave Law in Western Pennsylvania from 1850 to 1860", The American Constitutional Experience: Selected Readings & Supreme Court Opinions, Frederick Douglass on Slavery and the Civil War: Selections from His Writings, "Frederick Douglass Statue Torn Down On Anniversary Of Famous Speech", "Frederick Douglass statue torn down in Rochester, N.Y., on anniversary of his famous Fourth of July speech", "Frederick Douglass statue torn down on anniversary of great speech", "VIDEO: Frederick Douglass' Descendants Deliver His 'Fourth Of July' Speech", A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Frederick Douglass's Descendants Deliver His 'Fourth of July' Speech, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=What_to_the_Slave_Is_the_Fourth_of_July%3F&oldid=1137650578. In the solitude of my spirit, I see clouds of dust raised on the highways of the South; I see the bleeding footsteps; I hear the doleful wail of fettered humanity, on the way to the slave-markets, where the victims are to be sold like horses, sheep, and swine, knocked off to the highest bidder. The power is co-extensive with the Star-Spangled Banner and American Christianity. You have already declared it. 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. one of the most important speeches of the 19th century? The little experience I have had in addressing public meetings, in country schoolhouses, avails me nothing on the present occasion. He had delivered a series of seven lectures about slavery there in the winter of 185051. If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. What to the Slave is the Fourth of July | Historical Context The Colonial regime paved way for the transportation of slaves from different parts of the world, mostly from the African continent to work in southern states of America on cash crop plantations that generated a great source of income. But I differ from those who charge this baseness on the framers of the Constitution of the United States. But a change has now come over the affairs of mankind. sanction. The Fugitive Slave Law makes mercy to them a crime; and bribes the judge who tries them. Because the church stood behind the decision to abolish the selling and buying of people, so did the rest of the country. With brave men there is always a remedy for oppression. A self-taught man, he escaped from slavery and eventually became a leader in the abolitionist movement. Douglass argues that religion is the center of the problem but also the main solution to it. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? As the champions of oppressors, the chosen men of American theology have appearedmen, honored for their so-called piety, and their real learning. 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.I was born amid such sights and scenes. 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. On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? All this we affirm to be true of the popular church, and the popular worship of our land and nation a religion, a church, and a worship which, on the authority of inspired wisdom, we pronounce to be an abomination in the sight of God. Douglass then returns to the topic of the founding of the United States. Their opposition to the then dangerous thought was earnest and powerful; but, amid all their terror and affrighted vociferations against it, the alarming and revolutionary idea moved on, and the country with it. The minister of American justice is bound by the law to hear but one side; and that side, is the side of the oppressor. On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass gave a keynote address at an Independence Day celebration and asked, "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" Douglass was a powerful orator, often traveling six months out of the year to give lectures on abolition. 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!Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? You have no right to wear out and waste the hard-earned fame of your fathers to cover your indolence. There, see the old man, with locks thinned and gray. This Fourth [of] July is yours, not mine. Random House. He implored the Rochester, N.Y., audience to think about the ongoing oppression of Black Americans during a holiday celebrating . 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. There are exceptions, and I thank God that there are. Your lawmakers have commanded all good citizens to engage in this hellish sport. I am not that man. He refers to the Constitution as a "Glorious Liberty Document". You live and must die, and you must do your work. From Boston to London is now a holiday excursion. 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 crack you heard, was the sound of the slave-whip; the scream you heard, was from the woman you saw with the babe. 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. 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. 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. What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? The time for such argument is passed.At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. That people contented themselves under the shadow of Abrahams great name, while they repudiated the deeds which made his name great. In a Fourth of July holiday special, we begin with the words of Frederick Douglass. May of Syracuse, and my esteemed friend (Rev. The 'Address' may be had at this office, price ten cents, a single copy, or six dollars per hundred. The 4th of July Address, delivered in Corinthian Hall, by Frederick Douglass, is published on good paper, and makes a neat pamphlet of forty pages. when ye make many prayers, I will not hear. It is neither. Essentially, Douglass criticizes his audience's pride for a nation that claims to value freedom though it is composed of people who continuously commit atrocities against Blacks. ROY: Douglass wrote the speech in the wake of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which effectively extended the reach of slave power in the South throughout the rest of the country. What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? But we also need to invest as a city and as a society into reading and learning more about the present realities of oppressed peoples. Her speed had faltered under the weight of her child and her chains! who stand as the very lights of the church, have shamelessly given the sanction of religion and the Bible to the whole slave system. It destroys your moral power abroad; it corrupts your politicians at home. ROY: The event that were doing in Somerville puts pressure on whitewashed conceptions of the Fourth of July, as many people to this day still view it as a celebration of American food, fireworks, and freedom. This trade is one of the peculiarities of American institutions. As with rivers so with nations. 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? 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? These rules are well established. Initially mentored by William Lloyd Garrison, Douglass Here you will see men and women reared like swine for the market. That trade has long since been denounced by this government, as piracy. They may also rise in wrath and fury, and bear away, on their angry waves, the accumulated wealth of years of toil and hardship. 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. The United States does not have to stay the way it is. Your fathers have lived, died, and have done their work, and have done much of it well. Nevertheless, Douglass claims that this can change. Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe. The crack you heard, was the sound of the slave-whip; the scream you heard, was from the woman you saw with the babe. Tell me citizens, WHERE, under the sun, you can witness a spectacle more fiendish and shocking. 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.What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. 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.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. This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. 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. Hear his savage yells and his blood-chilling oaths, as he hurries on his affrighted captives! The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. Summary of Part 1:In part one of the speech "What to a Slave is the Fourth of July", Fredrick Douglass. 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 or to write. It was demanded, in the name of humanity, and according to the law of the living God. His very existence gave the lie to slave owners: with dignity and great intelligence he bore witness to the brutality of slavery. 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. Douglass believed that slavery could be eliminated with the support of the church, and also with the reexamination of what the Bible was actually saying. welcome atheism! 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. Products. 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! Frederick Douglass delivered his famous speech at the Corinthian Hall in Rochester, NY, on July. 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. Space is comparatively annihilated. These men were generally well dressed men, and very captivating in their manners. Frederick Douglass, ca 1855, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ever ready to drink, to treat, and to gamble. When the dogs in your streets, when the fowls of the air, when the cattle on your hills, when the fish of the sea, and the reptiles that crawl, shall be unable to distinguish the slave from a brute, then will I argue with you that the slave is a man!For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. Douglass denounces the churches for betraying their own biblical and Christian values. 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. I take it, therefore, that it is not presumption in a private citizen to form an opinion of that instrument.Now, take the Constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. The country can progress like it has before, transforming from being a colony of a far-away king to an independent nation. 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.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.In prosecuting the anti-slavery enterprise, we have been asked to spare the church, to spare the ministry; but how, we ask, could such a thing be done? I will not. was delivered in the decade preceding the American Civil War, which lasted from 1861 to 1865 and achieved the abolition of slavery. 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. They petitioned and remonstrated; they did so in a decorous, respectful, and loyal manner. [6] Due to this and the variant titles given to it in various places, and the fact that it is called a July Fourth Oration but was actually delivered on July 5, some confusion has arisen about the date and contents of the speech. That which is inhuman, cannot be divine! Long established customs of hurtful character could formerly fence themselves in, and do their evil work with social impunity. Creative people have bypassed gatekeepers for centuries to distribute what they wanted to share so badly. They find common ground in Houghton Library exhibition. Sydney Smith tells us that men seldom eulogize the wisdom and virtues of their fathers, but to excuse some folly or wickedness of their own. 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. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the lame man leap as an hart.But, such is not the state of the case. Feeling themselves harshly and unjustly treated by the home government, your fathers, like men of honesty, and men of spirit, earnestly sought redress. Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. You will see one of these human flesh-jobbers, armed with pistol, whip and bowie-knife, driving a company of a hundred men, women, and children, from the Potomac to the slave market at New Orleans. For who is there so cold, that a nations sympathy could not warm him? Building off of this, Douglass criticizes the Fugitive Slave Act, holding that in this act, "slavery has been nationalized in its most horrible and revolting form." America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. You know what is a swine-drover? Cling to this daycling to it, and to its principles, with the grasp of a storm-tossed mariner to a spar at midnight, Neither steam nor lightning had then been reduced to order and discipline, With them, justice, liberty and humanity were final; not slavery and oppression. It is a slander upon their memory, at least, so I believe. He was fortunate to have been taught to read by his slave owner mistress, and he would go on to become one of the major literary figures of his time. We need individual events like reading Douglass, but we also need to be thinking about ways to extend this conversation over the long term. Keidrick Roy, the host of the virtual reading event. Advertisement for the pamphlet of Douglass' speech from the July 12, 1852 edition of Frederick Douglass' Paper (formerly The North Star), Douglass begins by saying that the fathers of the nation were great statesmen, and that the values expressed in the Declaration of Independence were "saving principles", and the "ringbolt of your nation's destiny", stating, "stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost." 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. [16] Additionally, it awarded $10 to a judge who sentenced an individual to return to enslavement, while awarding only $5 if the claim was dismissed. 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. we wept when we remembered Zion. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisya thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future, Douglass said. In this collection, students will review the life of Frederick Douglass and learn about one of his most famous speeches, "The Meaning of Fourth of July for the Negro" (it is also commonly referred to as "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July). See this drove sold and separated forever; and never forget the deep, sad sobs that arose from that scattered multitude. 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. Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? And instead of being the honest men I have before declared them to be, they were the veriest imposters that ever practiced on mankind. 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. 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. The accepted time with God and his cause is the ever-living now. Further, if this demand were not complied with, another Scotland would be added to the history of religious liberty, and the stern old Covenanters would be thrown into the shade. 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. [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. 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, a seventh part of the inhabitants of your country.Fellow-citizens! I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! [20]:344. It is the antagonistic force in your government, the only thing that seriously disturbs and endangers your Union. The cause of liberty may be stabbed by the men who glory in the deeds of your fathers. ts future might be shrouded in gloom, and the hope of its prophets go out in sorr. Rhetorical Analysis Of Harvey Fourth Of July. Born into slavery around 1818, Douglass became a key leader of the abolitionist movement. In the second part of the speech, Douglass turns to the present and his own feelings about the 4th of July . They are plain, common-sense rules, such as you and I, and all of us, can understand and apply, without having passed years in the study of law. 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. 15 November's Documents in Detail webinar was about Frederick Douglass's What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?, his oration delivered on 5 July 1862. The evil that men do, lives after them, The good is oft-interred with their bones. Your fathers esteemed the English Government as the home government; and England as the fatherland. 00 Comments Please sign inor registerto post comments. No nation can now shut itself up from the surrounding world, and trot round in the same old path of its fathers without interference. I will not equivocate; I will not excuse;. Three score years and ten is the allotted time for individual men; but nations number their years by thousands. From what quarter, I beg to know, has proceeded a fire so deadly upon our ranks, during the last two years, as from the Northern pulpit? official permission or approval. Is it at the gateway? Born into slavery around 1818, Douglass became a key leader of the abolitionist. dismay. 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. [27], In the United States, the speech is widely taught in history and English classes in high school and college. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. that he is the rightful owner of his own body? 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. There are illustrations of it near and remote, ancient and modern. "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? 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. We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably work The downfall of slavery. The4th of July is the first great fact in your nation's history the very ringbolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destinyPride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetualremembrance. 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! There should be no shoulder that does not bear the burden of the government. He had a prophetic vision for the future that he was always trying to work toward. In the end, Douglass wants to keep his hope and faith in humanity high. Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetual remembrance. During the 1850's, the Fourth of July served as a reminder of the many horrors and injustices in the world. Let it be thundered around the world, that, in tyrant-killing, king-hating, people-loving, democratic, Christian America, the seats of justice are filled with judges, who hold their offices under an open and palpable bribe, and are bound, in deciding in the case of a mans liberty, hear only his accusers!In glaring violation of justice, in shameless disregard of the forms of administering law, in cunning arrangement to entrap the defenseless, and in diabolical intent, this Fugitive Slave Law stands alone in the annals of tyrannical legislation. Pale of this country need light, or six dollars per hundred could! His cause is the allotted time for such argument is passed.At a time like this to., transforming from being a colony of a far-away king to an independent nation seven lectures about slavery in. 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