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As noted here, that banquet was attended by prominent Speech Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice embodied in that Declaration of Independence extended to us? 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 It is a slander upon their memory, at least, so I believe. By that most foul and fiendish of all human decrees, the liberty and person of every man are put in peril. 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. You glory in your refinement and your universal education yet you maintain a system as barbarous and dreadful as ever stained the character of a nation a system begun in avarice, supported in pride, and perpetuated in cruelty. Do you mean citizens to mock me by asking me to speak today? 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. WebIn December 1860, the great American orator and former slave Frederick Douglass delivered one of his finest speeches, A Plea for Free Speech in Boston. In it, he boldly declared that liberty is meaningless where the right to utter ones thoughts and 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, I shall not be charged with slandering Americans, if I say I think the American side of any question may be safely left in American hands. WebAn excerpt from the 1847 Frederick Douglass speech given for the anniversary of the American Anti-Slavery Society. They perambulate the country, and crowd the highways of the nation, with droves of human stock. They were statesmen, patriots and heroes, and for the good they did, and the principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory. 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. 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 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. It esteems sacrifice above mercy; psalm-singing above right doing; solemn meetings above practical righteousness. 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! Roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world. 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? It is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. Great streams are not easily turned from channels, worn deep in the course of ages. I will not. They that can, may; I cannot. All Rights Reserved. They were peace men; but they preferred revolution to peaceful submission to bondage. On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass gave a speech at an Independence Day celebration organized by the Rochester Ladies Anti-Slavery Society. Their conduct was wholly unexceptionable. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. Racist Ex-University Of Kentucky 'Karen' Sophia Rosing Is Charged For Assaulting Black Student. They showed forbearance; but that they knew its limits. Try Rev and save time transcribing, captioning, and subtitling. Your fathers esteemed the English Government as the home government; and England as the fatherland. 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. You have no right to wear out and waste the hard-earned fame of your fathers to cover your indolence. There I see the tenderest ties ruthlessly broken, to gratify the lust, caprice and rapacity of the buyers and sellers of men. It was a startling idea, much more so, than we, at this distance of time, regard it. I will not excuse. The charter of our liberties, which every citizen has a personal interest in understanding thoroughly. 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. The Sharps, the Clarksons, the Wilberforces, the Buxtons, and Burchells and the Knibbs, were alike famous for their piety, and for their philanthropy. Frederick Douglass speech - PBS Many of its most eloquent Divines. Senator Berrien tell us that the Constitution is the fundamental law, that which controls all others. You may well cherish the memory of such men. 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, 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? Frederick Douglass: (01:08) here lies the merit, and the one which, of all others, seems unfashionable in our day. Banners and pennants wave exultingly on the breeze. 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. Become a freelancer and work on your own terms. When a child, my soul was often pierced with a sense of its horrors. The manhood of the slave is conceded. 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. The 4th of July is the first great fact in your nations history the very ring-bolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny. Speech 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 flesh-mongers gather up their victims by dozens, and drive them, chained, to the general depot at Baltimore. Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? Your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless, your shouts of Liberty and equality, hallow mocked, your prayers and hymns your sermons and Thanksgivings with all your religious parade in solemnity are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, a thin veil to cover up crimes, which would disgrace a nation of savages. Build with the best speech-to-text APIs around. Oceans no longer divide, but link nations together. speech was delivered on July 5, 1852 as an address to the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society in Rochester, New York. Before you read the speech you can follow these links to learn more about Douglasss life and the evolution of his thought in this period. Short bio of Frederick Douglass The Frederick Douglass Papers Library of Congress Now, take the Constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. The country was poor in the munitions of war. Here you will see men and women reared like swine for the market. During They were great in their day and generation. WebCelebrating 200 years of Frederick Douglass. Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has stronger nerves than I have. Hear his savage yells and his blood-chilling oaths, as he hurries on his affrighted captives! 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. 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? Who can reason on such a proposition? 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. The papers and placards say, that I am to deliver a 4th [of] July oration. 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. Frederick Douglass: (08:30) Who so stolid and selfish that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nations Jubilee when the chains of servitude have been torn from his limbs? They did so in the form of a resolution; and as we seldom hit upon resolutions, drawn up in our day whose transparency is at all equal to this, it may refresh your minds and help my story if I read it. 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. The fate of many a slave has depended upon the turn of a single card; and many a child has been snatched from the arms of its mother by bargains arranged in a state of brutal drunkenness. 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. Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) was a social reformer and advocate, abolitionist, orator, writer, minister, and statesman. 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. He further says, the Constitution, in its words, is plain and intelligible, and is meant for the home-bred, unsophisticated understandings of our fellow-citizens. "What to the Slave is the 4th of July?" 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 document is in the form of a Google Docs so it has a translation tool, dictionary, and voice to text. No, I will not. Oh! 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. The time for such argument is past. Your broad republican domain is hunting ground formen. 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. To him, your celebration is a sham, your boasted Liberty, an unholy license, your national greatness, swelling vanity. A general shout would go up from the church, demanding repeal, repeal, instant repeal! Behold the practical operation of this internal slave-trade, the American slave-trade, sustained by American politics and America religion. Many of you understand them better than I do. What to the American slave is your 4th of July? that gash on her shoulder tells her to move on. Born to an enslaved family in 1818, Frederick Douglass never knew his actual birthday, a fact not uncommon for those enslaved. I was born amid such sights and scenes. Who can reason on such a proposition? Frederick Douglass The most accurate AI-powered transcription on the market. WebDescription. Frederick Douglass thought that such rationalizations were crap, and he had the right to think so. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. They petitioned and remonstrated; they did so in a decorous, respectful, and loyal manner. This trade is one of the peculiarities of American institutions. 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. 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! 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. From the round top of your ship of state, dark and threatening clouds may be seen. Convert your audio or video into 99% accurate text by a professional. What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? - Wikipedia But, such is not the state of the case. 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. If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. 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 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. Just here, the idea of a total separation of the colonies from the crown was born! I will use the severest language I can command. 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. It is neither. Copyright 2023 Interactive One, LLC. 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. What have I, or those I represent to do with your national independence. 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.