Because the church stood behind the decision to abolish the selling and buying of people, so did the rest of the country. Douglass then pivots to the present, stating that "We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future". These men were generally well dressed men, and very captivating in their manners. In "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" Frederick Douglass sought not only to convince people of the wrongfulness of slavery but also to make abolition more acceptable to Northern whites. 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. He praises them because they were great men. 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! They that can, may; I cannot. 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. Ossie DavisA Voice Ringing O'er the Gale! your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery." Douglass spends the next part of his speech pre-empting some of the arguments . Is slavery among them? A general shout would go up from the church, demanding repeal, repeal, instant repeal!And it would go hard with that politician who presumed to solicit the votes of the people without inscribing this motto on his banner. At the same time, we need to be studying the history of slavery and racism in this country so we can build policies, practices, and procedures that address the present problems with those historical inequities in mind. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, lowering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin! It destroys your moral power abroad; it corrupts your politicians at home. 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?Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! "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? [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. When a sufficient number have been collected here, a ship is chartered, for the purpose of conveying the forlorn crew to Mobile, or to New Orleans. 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. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. The charter of our liberties, which every citizen has a personal interest in understanding thoroughly. Keidrick Roy, the host of the virtual reading event. "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. He also wrote a letter to Ida B. 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. Americans! The little experience I have had in addressing public meetings, in country schoolhouses, avails me nothing on the present occasion. Some of these have had wives and children, dependent on them for bread; but of this, no account was made. that gash on her shoulder tells her to move on. Products. In several states, this trade is a chief source of wealth. In July of 1852, Frederick Douglass prepares a speech known as The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro. You may rejoice, I must mourn. Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. 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. by Frederick Douglass 1852 11th Grade Lexile: 1140 Font Size Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) was an African American social reformer, orator, and writer. 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.For my part, I would say, welcome infidelity! 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. 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. Follow the drove to New Orleans. How can we sing the Lords song in a strange land? The far off and almost fabulous Pacific rolls in grandeur at our feet. These ministers make religion a cold and flinty-hearted thing, having neither principles of right action, nor bowels of compassion. 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. 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. In this respect, Douglass's views converged with that of Abraham Lincoln's[25] in that those politicians who were saying that the Constitution was a justification for their beliefs in regard to slavery were doing so dishonestly. Frederick Douglass, ca 1855, Metropolitan Museum of Art. What to the American slave is your Fourth of July? Born into slavery around 1818, Douglass became a key leader of the abolitionist movement. The speech "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" was delivered in the decade preceding the American Civil War, which lasted from 1861 to 1865 and achieved the abolition 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. 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. [5], A statue of Douglass erected in Rochester in 2018 was torn down on July 5, 2020the 168th anniversary of the speech. To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding.There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, that does not know that slavery is wrong for him.What, 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 irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to bum their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? Douglass says that if the residents of America believe that slaves are "men",[20]:342 they should be treated as such. In short, it gave the federal government an active role in maintaining the Souths system of slavery. I was glad to find one who sympathized with me in my horror.Fellow-citizens, this murderous traffic is, to-day, in active operation in this boasted republic. There is blasphemy in the thought. But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. 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 doubt if there be another nation on the globe, having the brass and the baseness to put such a law on the statute-book. The Bible addresses all such persons as scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, who pay tithe of mint, anise, and cumin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith.But the church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of the slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors. Is slavery among them? The existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretence, and your Christianity as a lie. . 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. 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. The fiat of the Almighty, Let there be Light, has not yet spent its force. or is it in the temple? Without this fight, the liberty of an American citizen would be as insecure as that of a Frenchman. 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. Seventy-six years, though a good old age for a man, is but a mere speck in the life of a nation. For black men there are neither law, justice, humanity, not religion. Text Frederick Douglass, " What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? The accepted time with God and his cause is the ever-living now. That is a question Frederick Douglass posed 169 Julys ago in a speech to a group of abolitionists, one that's become perhaps his most famous. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future, Douglass said. 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. These people were called Tories in the days of your fathers. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably work The downfall of slavery. As the champions of oppressors, the chosen men of American theology have appearedmen, honored for their so-called piety, and their real learning. 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. And instead of being the honest men I have before declared them to be, they were the veriest imposters that ever practiced on mankind. The manhood of the slave is conceded. [4], The speech "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" Not everyone. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? I will not equivocate; I will not excuse;. 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. 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. They perambulate the country, and crowd the highways of the nation, with droves of human stock. 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. 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. 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. 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." There is consolation in the thought that America is young. This is the inevitable conclusion, and from it there is no escape. On July 5, 1852, in . Douglass details the hardships past Americans once endured when they were members of British colonies and validates their feelings of ill treatment. On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? or is it in the temple? 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. 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. (3) $3.99. ROY:One of the things that Douglass writings shows us is that he believed in amplifying a variety of voices. welcome anything! To find out what elements make the speech 'What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?' A self-taught man, he escaped from slavery and eventually became a leader in the abolitionist movement. Need I remind you that a similar thing is being done all over this country to-day? Your lawmakers have commanded all good citizens to engage in this hellish sport. Yea! ts future might be shrouded in gloom, and the hope of its prophets go out in sorr. The sin of which it is guilty is one of omission as well as of commission. The power is co-extensive with the Star-Spangled Banner and American Christianity. These rules are well established. Walled cities and empires have become unfashionable. Washington could not die till he had broken the chains of his slaves. 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! Is it at the gateway? 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. Feeling themselves harshly and unjustly treated by the home government, your fathers, like men of honesty, and men of spirit, earnestly sought redress. Over 150,000 persons were sold between 1820 and 1830, and over 300,000 were sold between 1850 and 1860.[15]. Panel on dispossession of African Americans says burying truth keeps Black Americans dispossessed, Legal scholar and historian puts the push to remove Confederate statues in context, Members of the community share memories, plans, hopes for the holiday, Quantum computing simulation reveals possible wormhole-like dynamics. He validates the feelings of injustice the Founders felt then juxtaposes their experiences with vivid descriptions of the harshness of slavery.[21]. 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. 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 arm of the Lord is not shortened, and the doom of slavery is certain. Three score years and ten is the allotted time for individual men; but nations number their years by thousands. This act forced citizens to report people who had escaped their enslavement and escaped to a free state, under punishment of a fine or imprisonment. [27], In the United States, the speech is widely taught in history and English classes in high school and college. They petitioned and remonstrated; they did so in a decorous, respectful, and loyal manner. No! For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. Your fathers were wise men, and if they did not go mad, they became restive under this treatment. 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. 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. [17] This act drew the ire of the abolitionist movement,[9] and was directly criticized by Douglass in his speech. Ex-Senator Benton tells us that the price of men was never higher than now. 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. Tell me citizens, WHERE, under the sun, you can witness a spectacle more fiendish and shocking. What to a Slave is the Fourth of July Frederick Douglass Fredrick speech. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? A major theme of the speech is how America is not living up to its proclaimed beliefs. That which is inhuman, cannot be divine! Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? when ye make many prayers, I will not hear. By an act of the American Congress, not yet two years old, Mason and Dixons line has been obliterated, Did this law concern the mint, anise, and cumin. 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. Born into slavery around 1818, Douglass became a key leader of the abolitionist. GAZETTE: What is the historical setting for this speech, and why did Douglass focus on the Fourth of July? It is called (in contradistinction to the foreign slave-trade) the internal slave trade. It is, probably, called so, too, in order to divert from it the horror with which the foreign slave-trade is contemplated. The crack you heard, was the sound of the slave-whip; the scream you heard, was from the woman you saw with the babe. 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? They are a trouble to me; I am weary to bear them; and when ye spread forth your hands I will hide mine eyes from you. 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. He argues that though the international slave trade is correctly decried as abhorrent, the people of the United States are far less vocal in their opposition to domestic slave trade. 2. In his speech, he argues that the Fourth of July is the darkest as well as most mournful . To the slave, Douglass tells the audience, "your 4th of July is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license [for enslaving blacks] . It has made itself the bulwark of American slavery, and the shield of American slave-hunters. nor the perfect gage I think I have of Corinthian Hall, the slave plantation, from which I escaped, and trusting to your patient and generous indulgence, I will proceed to lay them before you, This, for the purpose of this celebration, is the 4th of July. [Under the Act] it became illegal not to arrest and return runaway slaves. (1982). He is outraged by the lack of responsibility and indifference towards slavery that many sects have taken around the nation. that it should be so; yet so it is. I do not remember ever to have appeared as a speaker before any assembly more. He faults America for utter hypocrisy and betrayal of those values in maintaining the institution of slavery. [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. 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. [20]:346 To prove evidence of these inconsistencies, as one historian noted, during the speech Douglass claims that the United States Constitution is an abolitionist document and not a pro-slavery document.[22][23][24]. Douglass denounces the churches for betraying their own biblical and Christian values. What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible being? The Fugitive Slave Law makes mercy to them a crime; and bribes the judge who tries them. See this drove sold and separated forever; and never forget the deep, sad sobs that arose from that scattered multitude. Senator Berrien tell us that the Constitution is the fundamental law, that which controls all others. The 4th of July is the first great fact in your nation's historythe very ring-bolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny. 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. Douglass also stresses the view that slaves and free Americans are equal in nature. Initially mentored by William Lloyd Garrison, Douglass What will this years event be like? Your fathers esteemed the English Government as the home government; and England as the fatherland. 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. 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. In 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act had passed Congress as part of the broader Compromise of 1850. Wind, steam, and lightning are its chartered agents. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. Were the nation older, the patriots heart might be sadder, and the reformers brow heavier. To all inspiring motives, to noble deeds which can be gained from the past, we are welcome. [28][29] The head of the organization responsible for the memorial speculated that it was vandalized in response to the removal of Confederate monuments in the wake of the George Floyd protests.[30]. Yea! 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? But now is the time, the important time. 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, while the river may not be turned aside, it may dry up, and leave nothing behind but the withered branch, and the unsightly rock, to howl in the abyss-sweeping wind, the sad tale of departed glory. 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. To me the American slave-trade is a terrible reality. 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. that gash on her shoulder tells her to move on. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The cause of liberty may be stabbed by the men who glory in the deeds of your fathers. In that speech, he cast the abolitionist movement as being engaged in a "War" against defenders of slavery. 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." 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. Our feet in history and English classes in high school and college be! And never forget the deep, sad sobs that arose from that scattered multitude on. 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