Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? His own testimony is nothing. Frederick Douglass's, What To the Slave Is the Fourth of America is false to the past, false to the present and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. To him, your celebration is a sham, your boasted Liberty, an unholy license, your national greatness, swelling vanity. Go search where you will. Fellow-citizens! Frederick Douglass: (00:26) 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? They that can, may; I cannot. The manhood of the slave is conceded. How can we sing the Lords song in a strange land? I will not. These ministers make religion a cold and flinty-hearted thing, having neither principles of right action, nor bowels of compassion. You live and must die, and you must do your work. As the champions of oppressors, the chosen men of American theology have appeared men, honored for their so-called piety, and their real learning. You know what is a swine-drover? Then, I dare to affirm, notwithstanding all I have said before, your fathers stooped, basely stooped. 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. For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. All Rights Reserved. The little experience I have had in addressing public meetings, in country schoolhouses, avails me nothing on the present occasion. speaking of it relatively, and positively, negatively, and affirmatively. The greatest and best of British statesmen admitted its justice, and the loftiest eloquence of the British Senate came to its support. No! Oh! 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! We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. Is that a question for Republicans? Seventy-six years, though a good old age for a man, is but a mere speck in the life of a nation. The hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed and its crimes against God and man must be denounced. A feeling has crept over me, quite unfavorable to the exercise of my limited powers of speech. Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. or is it in the temple? 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. 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? 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. 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. 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 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?
"What to the Slave is the 4th of July?" Speech Transcript Frederick Douglass, What to the Slave Is the Fourth Though a biting Frederick Douglass: (03:37) It makes its pathway over and under the sea, as well as on the earth. If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. I will not equivocate. 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). It is a fact, that whatever makes for the wealth or for the reputation of Americans, and can be had cheap! The time for such argument is passed. For who is there so cold that a nation sympathy cannot warm him, who so adore it and dead to the claims of gratitude that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? The power is co-extensive with the Star-Spangled Banner and American Christianity. Search out every abuse and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me that for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival. 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. There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, who does not know that slavery is wrong for him. This, however, did not answer the purpose. There are exceptions, and I thank God that there are. Just here, the idea of a total separation of the colonies from the crown was born! 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? Translated on-screen subtitles for videos. Need I tell you that the Jews are not the only people who built the tombs of the prophets, and garnished the sepulchres of the righteous? 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. Is slavery among them? Senator Berrien tell us that the Constitution is the fundamental law, that which controls all others. You may rejoice, I must mourn.. your republican politics, not less than your republican religion, are flagrantly inconsistent. Suicide Note Revealed After Shocking Death, Mississippi Cops Beat, Waterboarded Handcuffed Black Men, Shot 1 For Dating White Women': Lawyers, Indicted! Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! But neither their familiar faces, nor the perfect gage I think I have of Corinthian Hall, seems to free me from embarrassment. I say it with a sad sense of disparity between us. 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! Read its preamble, consider its purposes. 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, 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 Should I seem at ease, my appearance would much misrepresent me. I will use the severest language I can command.
Frederick Douglass In the summer of 2020, the U.S. commemorated Independence Day amid nationwide 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. Douglass views the monument and the day's ceremonies as reflecting honor upon African 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. The papers and placards say, that I am to deliver a 4th [of] July oration. The fact is, ladies and gentlemen, the distance between this platform and the slave plantation, from which I escaped, is considerable and the difficulties to be overcome in getting from the latter to the former, are by no means slight. They perambulate the country, and crowd the highways of the nation, with droves of human stock. be warned! 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. Long established customs of hurtful character could formerly fence themselves in, and do their evil work with social impunity. The din of business, too, is hushed. That bolt drawn, that chain broken, and all is lost. 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! To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding. With them, nothing was settled that was not right. You could instruct me in regard to them. They saw themselves treated with sovereign indifference, coldness and scorn. They form the staple of your national poetry and eloquence. But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. Three score years and ten is the allotted time for individual men; but nations number their years by thousands. He rose from the shackles of slavery to become an author, newspaper publisher, and respected abolitionist. 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. Frederick Douglass: (09:38) They petitioned and remonstrated; they did so in a decorous, respectful, and loyal manner. These wretched people are to be sold singly, or in lots, to suit purchasers. President John F. Kennedy On July 4, 1962 President John F. Kennedy delivered this speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He rose from the shackles of slavery to become an author, I take this law to be one of the grossest infringements of Christian Liberty, and, if the churches and ministers of our country were not stupidly blind, or most wickedly indifferent, they, too, would so regard it.
Frederick Douglass: Self-Made Man Speech | The Art of Manliness Heavy billows, like mountains in the distance, disclose to the leeward huge forms of flinty rocks! WebFrederick Douglass speech What to a Slave is the Fourth of July effectively argues against slavery. The time for such argument is past. 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. 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. Get a weekly digest of the weeks most important transcripts in your inbox. Would you argue more, and denounce less, would you persuade more, and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed. Calculate how much it costs to transcribe, caption, or subtitle your content. Americans! He can bring no witnesses for himself. The duty to extirpate and destroy it, is admitted even by our DOCTORS OF DIVINITY. 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. 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 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. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I remember, also, that, as a people, Americans are remarkably familiar with all facts which make in their own favor. WebFrederick Douglass, July 5, 1852 INTRODUCTION (Exordium) 1. This is esteemed by some as a national trait perhaps a national weakness. 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. It is neither. If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. WATCH VIDEO: Should Black Americans Celebrate Independence Day? Knowledge was then confined and enjoyed by the privileged few, and the multitude walked on in mental darkness. 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. Try Rev and save time transcribing, captioning, and subtitling. There is hope in the thought, and hope is much needed, under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon. The ear-piercing fife and the stirring drum unite their accents with the ascending peal of a thousand church bells. From Boston to London is now a holiday excursion. How circumspect, exact and proportionate were all their movements! 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. WebOn 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 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. With little experience and with less learning, I have been able to throw my thoughts hastily and imperfectly together; and trusting to your patient and generous indulgence, I will proceed to lay them before you. Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to those questions. Under Title 17 U.S.C. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? 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! 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! And the conscience of the nation must be roused. The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong city. welcome anything! The Bible addresses all such persons as scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, who pay tithe ofmint, anise,andcumin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith..
Oration by Frederick Douglass, delivered on the occasion of the Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, iswrong? Copyright 2023 Interactive One, LLC. But, your fathers, who had not adopted the fashionable idea of this day, of the infallibility of government, and the absolute character of its acts, presumed to differ from the home government in respect to the wisdom and the justice of some of those burdens and restraints. Some of these have had wives and children, dependent on them for bread; but of this, no account was made. Fromwhat quarter, I beg to know, has proceeded a fire so deadly upon our ranks, during the last two years, as from the Northern pulpit? Your broad republican domain is hunting ground formen. They may sometimes rise in quiet and stately majesty, and inundate the land, refreshing and fertilizing the earth with their mysterious properties. We need the storm. From the round top of your ship of state, dark and threatening clouds may be seen. Transcribe your audio files to find high-impact insights in minutes. You discourse eloquently on the dignity of labor; yet, you sustain a system which, in its very essence, casts a stigma upon labor. I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slaves point of view.
Frederick Douglass delivered 'best Fourth of July speech in Oceans no longer divide, but link nations together. There, see the old man, with locks thinned and gray. There was, at that time, a grand slave mart kept at the head of Pratt Street, by Austin Woldfolk. Speech-to-Text API for pre-recorded audio, powered by the worlds leading speech recognition engine. There is consolation in the thought that America is young. They who did so were accounted in their day, plotters of mischief, agitators and rebels, dangerous men.
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