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? The manhood of the slave is conceded. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.. 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. The country was poor in the munitions of war. Do you mean citizens to mock me by asking me to speak today? The propriety of the nation must be startled. To him, your celebration is a sham, your boasted Liberty, an unholy license, your national greatness, swelling vanity. Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. Cast one glance, if you please, upon that young mother, whose shoulders are bare to the scorching sun, her briny tears falling on the brow of the babe in her arms. 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, Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? There I see the tenderest ties ruthlessly broken, to gratify the lust, caprice and rapacity of the buyers and sellers of men. Is it at the gateway? No abuse, no outrage whether in taste, sport or avarice, can now hide itself from the all-pervading light. 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. How unlike the politicians of an hour! The Best Speech-to-Text Solution for Your Business Learn how Rev fits into your businesses workflow. See, too, that girl of thirteen, weeping, yes! It was a startling idea, much more so, than we, at this distance of time, regard it. 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 While I do not intend to argue this question on the present occasion, let me ask, if it be not somewhat singular that, if the Constitution were intended to be, by its framers and adopters, a slave-holding instrument, why neither slavery, slaveholding, nor slave can anywhere be found in it. Who can reason on such a proposition? For my part, I would say, welcome infidelity! Nobody doubts it. Frederick Douglass thought that such rationalizations were crap, and he had the right to think so. 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. This is a primary source reading analysis of Frederick Douglass' famous speech. The feeling of the nation must be quickened. The slaveholders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. From the Potomac to the Delaware was a journey of many days. There, the church, true to its mission of ameliorating, elevating, and improving the condition of mankind, came forward promptly, bound up the wounds of the West Indian slave, and restored him to his liberty. 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. Great streams are not easily turned from channels, worn deep in the course of ages. Fellow-citizens! Frederick Douglass thought that such rationalizations were crap, and he had the right to think so. Fellow-citizens; above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! Sydney Smith tells us that men seldom eulogize the wisdom and virtues of their fathers, but to excuse some folly or wickedness of their own. 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! By that act, Mason and Dixons line has been obliterated; New York has become as Virginia; and the power to hold, hunt, and sell men, women, and children as slaves remains no longer a mere state institution, but is now an institution of the whole United States. The charter of our liberties, which every citizen has a personal interest in understanding thoroughly. I have detained my audience entirely too long already. If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. I shall see, this day, and its popular characteristics, from the slaves point of view. These gentlemen have, as I think, fully and clearly vindicated the Constitution from any design to support slavery for an hour. I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the ring-bolt to the chain of your nations destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. Copyright 2023 Interactive One, LLC. My subject, then fellow-citizens, is AMERICAN SLAVERY. The flesh-mongers gather up their victims by dozens, and drive them, chained, to the general depot at Baltimore. 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. The duty to extirpate and destroy it, is admitted even by our DOCTORS OF DIVINITY. They went so far in their excitement as to pronounce the measures of government unjust, unreasonable, and oppressive, and altogether such as ought not to be quietly submitted to. WebCelebrating 200 years of Frederick Douglass. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Oppression makes a wise man mad. One is struck with the difference between the attitude of the American church towards the anti-slavery movement, and that occupied by the churches in England towards a similar movement in that country. You profess to believe that, of one blood, God made all nations of men to dwell on the face of all the earth, and hath commanded all men, everywhere to love one another; yet you notoriously hate, (and glory in your hatred), all men whose skins are not colored like your own. Your fathers esteemed the English Government as the home government; and England as the fatherland. Fellow citizens, this murderous traffic is, today, in active operation in this boasted republic. 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! 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. Their statesmanship looked beyond the passing moment, and stretched away in strength into the distant future. Americans! I scout the idea that the question of the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of slavery is not a question for the people. They believed in order; but not in the order of tyranny. Fellows citizens, pardon me and allow me to ask, why am I called to speak here today? There were then no means of concert and combination, such as exist now. Though a biting It was fashionable, hundreds of years ago, for the children of Jacob to boast, we have Abraham to our father, when they had long lost Abrahams faith and spirit. It destroys your moral power abroad; it corrupts your politicians at home. This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. Is that a question for Republicans? Now, take the Constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. 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. They inhabit all our Southern States. The time was when such could be done. These wretched people are to be sold singly, or in lots, to suit purchasers. They petitioned and remonstrated; they did so in a decorous, respectful, and loyal manner. Our eyes are met with demonstrations of joyous enthusiasm. Heavy billows, like mountains in the distance, disclose to the leeward huge forms of flinty rocks! Your fathers have lived, died, and have done their work, and have done much of it well. 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. They perambulate the country, and crowd the highways of the nation, with droves of human stock. be warned! They form the staple of your national poetry and eloquence. Resolved, That these united colonies are, and of right, ought to be free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown; and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, dissolved.. To side with the right, against the wrong, with the weak against the strong, and with the oppressed against the oppressor! When a child, my soul was often pierced with a sense of its horrors. They succeeded; and to-day you reap the fruits of their success. The simple story of it is that, 76 years ago, the people of this country were British subjects. The drove moves tardily. They felt themselves the victims of grievous wrongs, wholly incurable in their colonial capacity. Juneteenth Reading List: 10 Books To Learn More About Black Independence Day, Your email will be shared with newsone.com and subject to its, The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro address before an audience, at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York, on July 5, 1852, he was issuing , a scathing indictment of American hypocrisy, Washington Post columnist Courtland Milloy, . It is not the gentle shower, but thunder. Frederick Douglass: (01:08) Discover why Rev is the #1 speech-to-text service in the world. Easily integrate Rev using our robust APIs to start building your product quickly. Your broad republican domain is hunting ground formen. 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. 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. 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? 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. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. WebIn this speech, Frederick Douglass reflected on how the outpouring of joy at the conclusion of the Civil War turned to mourning with Lincolns assassination. who stand as the very lights of the church, have shamelessly given the sanction of religion and the Bible to the whole slave system. 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. 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. Then would my task be light and my burden easy and delightful? Is that a question for Republicans? The sunlight that brought life and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me. It was, Milloy continued, a critique of a nation that claimed to hold dear the principles of freedom, justice and equality even as it enslaved black people..