Is that a question for Republicans? There were then no means of concert and combination, such as exist now. It is a fact, that whatever makes for the wealth or for the reputation of Americans, and can be had cheap! That bolt drawn, that chain broken, and all is lost. You may rejoice. 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. What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? They, that can, may. What was possible for him, he sincerely believed was possible for any man who was willing to work hard. Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? How can we sing the Lords song in a strange land? We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future. My business, if I have any here today, is with the present. I will show you a man-drover. We thank you for taking the time to watch this community reading of Frederick Douglasss What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? Source: Blight, David. Then would my task be light and my burden easy and delightful? Should I seem at ease, my appearance would much misrepresent me. Many of you understand them better than I do. Were the nation older, the patriots heart might be sadder, and the reformers brow heavier. Frederick Douglass: (06:03) 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. Like our content? The task before me is one which requires much previous thought and study for its proper performance. Read its preamble, consider its purposes. There are exceptions, and I thank God that there are. 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. Copyright 2023 Interactive One, LLC. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. As the champions of oppressors, the chosen men of American theology have appeared men, honored for their so-called piety, and their real learning. What to the American slave is your 4th of July? Thu 5 Jul 2018 07.00 EDT Last modified on Wed 24 Jul 2019 11.58 EDT. 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. Did this law concern the mint, anise, and cumin abridge the right to sing psalms, to partake of the sacrament, or to engage in any of the ceremonies of religion, it would be smitten by the thunder of a thousand pulpits. The blessings in which you this day rejoice are not enjoyed in common. 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! The slave holders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has stronger nerves than I have. This is the inevitable conclusion, and from it there is no escape. For it is not light that is needed, but fire. No, I will not. WebFrederick Douglass speech What to a Slave is the Fourth of July effectively argues against slavery. 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? Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe. 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. Do you mean citizens to mock me by asking me to speak today? The manhood of the slave is conceded. 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. Their solid manhood stands out the more as we contrast it with these degenerate times. They hate all changes, but silver, gold and copper change! Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience nor grace my speech with any high sounding exordium. That he is the rightful owner of his own body? 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. Frederick Douglass: (07:35) Fair use is permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. 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. welcome atheism! He who will, intelligently, lay down his life for his country, is a man whom it is not in human nature to despise. 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 palpablebribe, and are bound, in deciding in the case of a mans liberty,hear only his accusers! President John F. Kennedy On July 4, 1962 President John F. Kennedy delivered this speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I was born amid such sights and scenes. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak. A speech given at Rochester, New York, July 5, 1852 . There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, that does not know that slavery is wrong for him. 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, 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. 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. 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. that gash on her shoulder tells her to move on. It destroys your moral power abroad; it corrupts your politicians at home. The simple story of it is that, 76 years ago, the people of this country were British subjects. A RESTful API to access Revs workforce of fast, high quality transcriptionists and captioners. There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, who does not know that slavery is wrong for him. This, for the purpose of this celebration, is the 4th of July. The cause of liberty may be stabbed by the men who glory in the deeds of your fathers. You may well cherish the memory of such men. Racist Ex-University Of Kentucky 'Karen' Sophia Rosing Is Charged For Assaulting Black Student. They may sometimes rise in quiet and stately majesty, and inundate the land, refreshing and fertilizing the earth with their mysterious properties. On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? 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. Make your content more accessible to people with disabilities. For black men there are neither law, justice, humanity, not religion. be warned! 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! For 186 years this doctrine of national independence has shaken the globeand it remains the most powerful force anywhere in the world today. Fellow-citizens! To all inspiring motives, to noble deeds which can be gained from the past, we are welcome. Frederick Douglass: (06:44) If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. The hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed and its crimes against God and man must be denounced. My subject then, fellow citizens, is American slavery. 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. Take the American slave-trade, which, we are told by the papers, is especially prosperous just now. 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! But, such is not the state of the case. 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. 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 hypocrisy a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. It esteems sacrifice above mercy; psalm-singing above right doing; solemn meetings above practical righteousness. How circumspect, exact and proportionate were all their movements! 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.
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