welcome anything! Thoughts expressed on one side of the Atlantic, are distinctly heard on the other. Fair use is permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. There are illustrations of it near and remote, ancient and modern. 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. Where these are, man is not sacred. 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. I know that apologies of this sort are generally considered flat and unmeaning. Would you persuade more and rebuke less? When Douglass delivered his famous The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro address before an audience at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York, on July 5, Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. Nobody doubts it. They were great men too great enough to give fame to a great age. Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? Under these, and innumerable other disadvantages, your fathers declared for liberty and independence and triumphed. But I fancy, I hear some of my audience say it is just in this circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression upon the public mind. 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. Is it not astonishing that while we are plowing, planting and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metal of brass, iron, copper, silver, and gold, that while we are reading, writing, and ciphering acting as clerks, merchants, and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators, and teachers that we are engaged in all the enterprises, common to other men, digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific feeding sheep and cattle on the hillside, living, moving, acting, thinking, planting, living in families as husbands, wives, and children, and above all confessing and worshiping the Christian God and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave. It is carried on in all the large towns and cities in one-half of this confederacy; and millions are pocketed every year, by dealers in this horrid traffic. The greatest and best of British statesmen admitted its justice, and the loftiest eloquence of the British Senate came to its support. With little experience and with less learning, I have been able to throw my thoughts hastily and imperfectly together; and Without this right, the liberty of an American citizen would be as insecure as that of a Frenchman. They strip the love of God of its beauty, and leave the throng of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form. On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? 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. It was a startling idea, much more so, than we, at this distance of time, regard it. It is, however, a notable fact that, while so much execration is poured out by Americans upon those engaged in the foreign slave-trade, the men engaged in the slave-trade between the states pass without condemnation, and their business is deemed honorable. The ear-piercing fife and the stirring drum unite their accents with the ascending peal of a thousand church bells. that it should be so; yet so it is. 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. You have already declared it. They were great in their day and generation. I scarcely need say, fellow-citizens, that my opinion of those measures fully accords with that of your fathers. There was, at that time, a grand slave mart kept at the head of Pratt Street, by Austin Woldfolk. Nations do not now stand in the same relation to each other that they did ages ago. As the sheet anchor takes a firmer hold, when the ship is tossed by the storm, so did the cause of your fathers grow stronger, as it breasted the chilling blasts of kingly displeasure. The timid and the prudent (as has been intimated) of that day, were, of course, shocked and alarmed by it. 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 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. Standing here identified with the American bondsmen, making his wrongs mine. They may sometimes rise in quiet and stately majesty, and inundate the land, refreshing and fertilizing the earth with their mysterious properties. Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? At a time like this, scorching irony not convincing argument is needed. 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. That trade has long since been denounced by this government, as piracy. 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. Frederick Douglass: (06:44) I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the ring-bolt to the chain of your nations destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. Were the nation older, the patriots heart might be sadder, and the reformers brow heavier. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? 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! Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slaves point of view. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. But, besides general considerations, there were peculiar circumstances which make the advent of this republic an event of special attractiveness. Frederick Douglass: (09:38) Frederick Douglass thought that such rationalizations were crap, and he had the right to think so. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery. It destroys your moral power abroad; it corrupts your politicians at home. will be found by Americans. 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? They form the staple of your national poetry and eloquence. To him, your celebration is a sham, your boasted Liberty, an unholy license, your national greatness, swelling vanity. 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. O! Of this sort of change they are always strongly in favor. Yea! Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has stronger nerves than I have. 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 manhood of the slave is conceded. Transcript Descendants of Frederick Douglass read excerpts from one of his most famous speeches: What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? This certainly sounds large, and out of the common way, for it is true that I have often had the privilege to speak in this beautiful Hall, and to address many who now honor me with their presence. The message of Frederick Douglasss 1852 speech on the contradiction of Americas just ideals and unjust realities endures. Build with the best speech-to-text APIs around. I cannot. By an act of the American Congress, not yet two years old, slavery has been nationalized in its most horrible and revolting form. Travel through South America. I hold that every American citizen has a right to form an opinion of the constitution, and to propagate that opinion, and to use all honorable means to make his opinion the prevailing one. weeping, as she thinks of the mother from whom she has been torn! Such people lived then, had lived before, and will, probably, ever have a place on this planet; and their course, in respect to any great change, (no matter how great the good to be attained, or the wrong to be redressed by it), may be calculated with as much precision as can be the course of the stars. Frederick Douglass: (04:09) your republican politics, not less than your republican religion, are flagrantly inconsistent. There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, that does not know that slavery is wrong for him. I will show you a man-drover. The causes which led to the separation of the colonies from the British crown have never lacked for a tongue. 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. What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible being? To me the American slave-trade is a terrible reality. 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. Your fathers staked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, on the cause of their country. 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, Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe. 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. I remember, also, that, as a people, Americans are remarkably familiar with all facts which make in their own favor. I trust, however, that mine will not be so considered. With brave men there is always a remedy for oppression. Youmay rejoice,Imust mourn. That is a branch of knowledge in which you feel, perhaps, a much deeper interest than your speaker. Hear his savage yells and his blood-chilling oaths, as he hurries on his affrighted captives! Transcripts & captions for a better media workflow. From the Potomac to the Delaware was a journey of many days. 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. Do you mean citizens to mock me by asking me to speak today? There are exceptions, and I thank God that there are. The manhood of the slave is conceded. WebThe Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro by Frederick Douglass. What? Frederick Douglass: (10:31) For my part, I would say, welcome infidelity! His own testimony is nothing. As with rivers so with nations. It has been denounced with burning words, from the high places of the nation, as an execrable traffic. Is a matter, the set with great difficulty involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard to understand? 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? 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. That, which is inhuman cannot be divine. 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! What, then, remains to be argued? Long established customs of hurtful character could formerly fence themselves in, and do their evil work with social impunity. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? 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. There, the question of emancipation was a high religious question. Noble men may be found, scattered all over these Northern States, of whom Henry Ward Beecher of Brooklyn, Samuel J. The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong city. This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth! To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world.

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