This Fourth [of] July is yours, not mine. the feeling of despair in the face of obstacles. Yet this is but a glance at the American slave-trade, as it exists, at this moment, in the ruling part of the United States.I was born amid such sights and scenes. Would you argue more, and denounce less, would you persuade more, and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed. 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? The British accomplished this through religion or more specifically, the church. Need I remind you that a similar thing is being done all over this country to-day? Douglass also stresses the view that slaves and free Americans are equal in nature. 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. when ye make many prayers, I will not hear. (3) $3.99. 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. In a Fourth of July holiday special, we begin with the words of Frederick Douglass. Knowledge is becoming more readily available, Douglass said, and soon the American people will open their eyes to the atrocities they have been inflicting on their fellow Americans. For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. Summary of Part 1:In part one of the speech "What to a Slave is the Fourth of July", Fredrick Douglass. Douglass denounces the churches for betraying their own biblical and Christian values. Random House. The arm of the Lord is not shortened, and the doom of slavery is certain. "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? With brave men there is always a remedy for oppression. Is slavery among them? Follow the drove to New Orleans. Oh! He also wrote a letter to Ida B. 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 nationa system begun in avarice, supported in pride, and perpetuated in cruelty. 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! What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? 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. Initially mentored by William Lloyd Garrison, Douglass In an 1868 speech, he said, No man should be excluded from the government on the basis of his color, no woman on account of her sex. What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? 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. To me the American slave-trade is a terrible reality. He wrote and presented a speech that challenged . 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. whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. In the end, Douglass wants to keep his hope and faith in humanity high. It was demanded, in the name of humanity, and according to the law of the living God. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. He mentions the fact to show that slavery is in no danger. 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? For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. I take it, therefore, that it is not presumption in a private citizen to form an opinion of that instrument.Now, take the Constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. I shall see, this day, and its popular characteristics, from the slaves point of view. It is fashionable to do so; but there was a time when to pronounce against England, and in favor of the cause of the colonies, tried mens souls. You know what is a swine-drover? 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". 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! They may sometimes rise in quiet and stately majesty, and inundate the land, refreshing and fertilizing the earth with their mysterious properties. 5.0. In his speech, "The Hypocrisy of American Slavery . He can bring no witnesses for himself. They hate all changes, but silver, gold and copper change! 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. The audience must fulfill what the founders of the country advocated. The 4th of July Address, delivered in Corinthian Hall, by Frederick Douglass, is published on good paper, and makes a neat pamphlet of forty pages. A feeling has crept over me, quite unfavorable to the exercise of my limited powers of speech. 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. that gash on her shoulder tells her to move on. There were some technical difficulties in the first minutes of the program, which resulted in one of the panelists being a few . Stauffer, John. 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. I am also hosting a summer reading and discussion series called Race, Fragility, and Anti-Racism through the Somerville Museum and the City on a Hill network of local churches. 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. After this, he turns his attention to the church. Douglass equates this to being worse than many other things that are banned, in particular, books and plays that are banned for infidelity. Of this sort of change they are always strongly in favor. 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. Not for thieves and robbers, enemies of society, merely, but for men guilty of no crime. Washington could not die till he had broken the chains of his slaves. Douglass addressed a part of the population for which the day had huge significance the true independence, he argues, is not for the American people, but for the American slave. Ever ready to drink, to treat, and to gamble. Summary: "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" In "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?", otherwise known as "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro," Frederick Douglassoutlines a careful argument against the institution of slavery and more specifically the Fugitive Slave Act. in preference to the gospel, as preached by those Divines! The Lords of Buffalo, the Springs of New York, the Lathrops of Auburn, the Coxes and Spencers of Brooklyn, the Gannets and Sharps of Boston, the Deweys of Washington, and other great religious lights of the land have, in utter denial of the authority of Him by whom the professed to he called to the ministry, deliberately taught us, against the example or the Hebrews and against the remonstrance of the Apostles, they teach that we ought to obey mans law before the law of God.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. It is not that pure and undefiled religion which is from above, and which is first pure, then peaceable, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. But a religion which favors the rich against the poor; which exalts the proud above the humble; which divides mankind into two classes, tyrants and slaves; which says to the man in chains, stay there; and to the oppressor, oppress on; it is a religion which may be professed and enjoyed by all the robbers and enslavers of mankind; it makes God a respecter of persons, denies his fatherhood of the race, and tramples in the dust the great truth of the brotherhood of man. 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." 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. These rules are well established. 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. I am not that man. Some of these have had wives and children, dependent on them for bread; but of this, no account was made. Feeling themselves harshly and unjustly treated by the home government, your fathers, like men of honesty, and men of spirit, earnestly sought redress. In this collection, students will review the life of Frederick Douglass and learn about one of his most famous speeches, "The Meaning of Fourth of July for the Negro" (it is also commonly referred to as "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July). You have already declared it. that he is the rightful owner of his own body? It destroys your moral power abroad; it corrupts your politicians at home. your republican politics, not less than your republican religion, are flagrantly inconsistent. There was, at that time, a grand slave mart kept at the head of Pratt Street, by Austin Woldfolk. He was fortunate to have been taught to read by his slave owner mistress, and he would go on to become one of the major literary figures of his time. On July 4, 1852, Frederick Douglass-- a former American slave, abolitionist leader and adroit speaker-- spoke in Rochester, New York about the affectation of celebrating independence. He is a bird for the sportsmans gun. But I differ from those who charge this baseness on the framers of the Constitution of the United States. With this product, you can choose to either have your students read the entire speech and annotate and analyze Douglass' rhetorical devices or you can choose to have your students read shorter excerpts from the speech and do an abbreviated annotation and analysis of rhetorical devices. 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. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. "[1][2] 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 Society. There are illustrations of it near and remote, ancient and modern. Essentially, Douglass criticizes his audience's pride for a nation that claims to value freedom though it is composed of people who continuously commit atrocities against Blacks. If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. The fiat of the Almighty, Let there be Light, has not yet spent its force. My soul sickens at the sight. This home government, you know, although a considerable distance from your home, did, in the exercise of its parental prerogatives, impose upon its colonial children, such restraints, burdens and limitations, as, in its mature judgment, it deemed wise, right and proper. They perambulate the country, and crowd the highways of the nation, with droves of human stock. He is outraged by the lack of responsibility and indifference towards slavery that many sects have taken around the nation. Is that a question for Republicans? "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" remains one of the most effective and poignant condemnations of slavery in the canon of American abolitionist literature, a tribute to the moral character and oratorical skills of Frederick Douglass. If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. He implored the Rochester, N.Y., audience to think about the ongoing oppression of Black Americans during a holiday celebrating . 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. Born into slavery around 1818, Douglass became a key leader of the abolitionist movement. The right of the hunter to his prey stands superior to the right of marriage, and to all rights in this republic, the rights of God included! It has been denounced with burning words, from the high places of the nation, as an execrable traffic. 2. 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. speaking of it relatively, and positively, negatively, and affirmatively. 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. The drove moves tardily. 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.Behold the practical operation of this internal slave-trade, the American slave-trade, sustained by American politics and America religion. The speech has since been published under the above title in The Frederick Douglass Papers, Series One, Vol. The Oratory of Fr. Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has stronger nerves than I have. The Fugitive Slave Law makes mercy to them a crime; and bribes the judge who tries them. This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. Douglass' speech came just 11 years before Lincolns Emancipation Proclamation hitting a poignant point in American history through his targeting of the slave as a crucial figure in desperate need of independence. 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.Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, 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.Take the American slave-trade, which, we are told by the papers, is especially prosperous just now. that it should be so; yet so it is. Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? They may also rise in wrath and fury, and bear away, on their angry waves, the accumulated wealth of years of toil and hardship. Yea! was delivered in the decade preceding the American Civil War, which lasted from 1861 to 1865 and achieved the abolition of slavery. Must we allow symbols of racism on public land? The far off and almost fabulous Pacific rolls in grandeur at our feet. True Christians, according to Douglass, should not stand idly by while the rights and liberty of others are stripped away. They are plain, common-sense rules, such as you and I, and all of us, can understand and apply, without having passed years in the study of law. From Boston to London is now a holiday excursion. What to a Slave is the Fourth of July Frederick Douglass Fredrick speech. The founders of the United States what, to you, is your 4th of July the! He had broken the chains of his own body, this day, and to gamble to Douglass, not. 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