With them, nothing was settled that was not right. 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. As noted here, that banquet was attended by prominent Under these, and innumerable other disadvantages, your fathers declared for liberty and independence and triumphed. Copyright 2023 Interactive One, LLC. whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. 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. If any man in this assembly thinks differently from me in this matter, and feels able to disprove my statements, I will gladly confront him at any suitable time and place he may select. Would you argue more, and denounce less, would you persuade more, and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed. WebIn the late 1860sat a moment of great hope for the promise of equality under the lawthe famed orator and once-enslaved abolitionist Frederick Douglass took his Our Composite Nation speech on the road to argue for a plural American democracy. Frederick Douglass, circa 1879. Difference between Rittenhouse and McMichael-Bryan verdicts? Frederick Douglass delivered his famous speech What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? in 1852, drawing parallels between the Revolutionary War and the fight to abolish slavery. 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. The principles contained in that instrument are saving principles. These wretched people are to be sold singly, or in lots, to suit purchasers. Oh! To side with the right, against the wrong, with the weak against the strong, and with the oppressed against the oppressor! Great streams are not easily turned from channels, worn deep in the course of ages. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. This is esteemed by some as a national trait perhaps a national weakness. 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. As the champions of oppressors, the chosen men of American theology have appeared men, honored for their so-called piety, and their real learning. Then would my task be light and my burden easy and delightful? They believed in order; but not in the order of tyranny. The slave holders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong city. 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. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth. The manhood of the slave is conceded. But I differ from those who charge this baseness on the framers of the Constitution of the United States. Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. There was, at that time, a grand slave mart kept at the head of Pratt Street, by Austin Woldfolk. On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? 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. And it would go hard with that politician who presumed to solicit the votes of the people without inscribing this motto on his banner. Friends and citizens, I need not enter further into the causes which led to this anniversary. Is it at the gateway? Fellow-citizens, I shall not presume to dwell at length on the associations that cluster about this day. To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs and to chime in with the popular theme would be treason most sacrilegious and shocking and would make me a reproach before God and the world. 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.. 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. The sin of which it is guilty is one of omission as well as of commission. The ear-piercing fife and the stirring drum unite their accents with the ascending peal of a thousand church bells. You have already declared it. A feeling has crept over me, quite unfavorable to the exercise of my limited powers of speech. 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, . The testimony of Senator Breese, Lewis Cass, and many others that might be named, who are everywhere esteemed as sound lawyers, so regard the constitution. They felt themselves the victims of grievous wrongs, wholly incurable in their colonial capacity. Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to those questions. They were great in their day and generation. There, see the old man, with locks thinned and gray. President John F. Kennedy On July 4, 1962 President John F. Kennedy delivered this speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They convert the very name of religion into an engine of tyranny, and barbarous cruelty, and serve to confirm more infidels, in this age, than all the infidel writings of Thomas Paine, Voltaire, and Bolingbroke, put together, have done! I will show you a man-drover. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. When you can point to any such laws, in reference to the beasts of the field, then I may consent to argue the manhood of the slave. Yet his monument is built up by the price of human blood, and the traders in the bodies and souls of men shout We have Washington toour father. Alas! Would you persuade more and rebuke less? Fair use is permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. 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. When a sufficient number have been collected here, a ship is chartered, for the purpose of conveying the forlorn crew to Mobile, or to New Orleans. That point is conceded already. With little experience and with less learning, I have been able to throw my thoughts hastily and imperfectly together; and Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience nor grace my speech with any high sounding exordium. Of this fundamental work, this day is the anniversary. This Fourth [of] July isyours, notmine. welcome anything! To say now that America was right, and England wrong, is exceedingly easy. Is that a question for Republicans? 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. The Bible addresses all such persons as scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, who pay tithe ofmint, anise,andcumin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith.. Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has stronger nerves than I have. 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.. For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. Frederick Douglass: (00:26) The Fugitive SlaveLawmakes mercy to them a crime; and bribes the judge who tries them. Frederick Douglass's, What To the Slave Is the Fourth of But I admit, where all is plain, there is nothing to be argued. Thoughts expressed on one side of the Atlantic, are distinctly heard on the other. 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. Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? or is it in the temple? 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, What was possible for him, he sincerely believed was possible for any man who was willing to work hard. Were the nation older, the patriots heart might be sadder, and the reformers brow heavier. There were then no means of concert and combination, such as exist now. He rose from the shackles of slavery to become an author, VIDEO: Frederick Douglass' descendants deliver his 'Fourth of July' speech. Convert your audio or video into 99% accurate text by a professional. 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. Youmay rejoice,Imust mourn. Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. No nation can now shut itself up from the surrounding world, and trot round in the same old path of its fathers without interference. The fiat of the Almighty, Let there be Light, has not yet spent its force. From the Potomac to the Delaware was a journey of many days. No, I will not. 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. But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. 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, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. will be found by Americans. Like our content? Frederick Douglass: (02:57) What to the Slave is the 4th of July? Speech Transcript by Frederick Douglass, Congressional Testimony & Hearing Transcripts. Fellow-citizens! Albert Barnes but uttered what the common sense of every man at all observant of the actual state of the case will receive as truth, when he declared that There is no power out of the church that could sustain slavery an hour, if it were not sustained in it.. The feeling of the nation must be quickened. Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) was a social reformer and advocate, abolitionist, orator, writer, minister, and statesman. 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. It is not the gentle shower, but thunder. 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. To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding. 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. Copyright 2023 Interactive One, LLC. You may well cherish the memory of such men. in preference to the gospel,as preached by those Divines! Senator Berrien tell us that the Constitution is the fundamental law, that which controls all others. That I am here to-day is, to me, a matter of astonishment as well as of gratitude. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Everybody can say it; the dastard, not less than the noble brave, can flippantly discant on the tyranny of England towards the American Colonies. That bolt drawn, that chain broken, and all is lost. 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. 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. The far off and almost fabulous Pacific rolls in grandeur at our feet. Cling to this day cling to it, and to its principles, with the grasp of a storm-tossed mariner to a spar at midnight. My subject, then fellow-citizens, is AMERICAN SLAVERY. This, for the purpose of this celebration, is the 4th of July. 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. Ex-Vice-President Dallas tells us that the Constitution is an object to which no American mind can be too attentive, and no American heart too devoted. Where these are, man is not sacred. I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. Industry-leading accurate legal transcription to ensure you dont miss a statement. Oceans no longer divide, but link nations together. 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. This celebration also marks the beginning of another year of your national life; and reminds you that the Republic of America is now 76 years old. They form the staple of your national poetry and eloquence. I will use the severest language I can command. The charter of our liberties, which every citizen has a personal interest in understanding thoroughly. Then, I dare to affirm, notwithstanding all I have said before, your fathers stooped, basely stooped. For who is there so cold that a nation sympathy cannot warm him, who so adore it and dead to the claims of gratitude that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Its future might be shrouded in gloom, and the hope of its prophets go out in sorrow. Suicide Note Revealed After Shocking Death, Mississippi Cops Beat, Waterboarded Handcuffed Black Men, Shot 1 For Dating White Women': Lawyers, Indicted! Nobody doubts it. 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. It esteems sacrifice above mercy; psalm-singing above right doing; solemn meetings above practical righteousness. The madness of this course, we believe, is admitted now, even by England; but we fear the lesson is wholly lost on our present ruler. With brave men there is always a remedy for oppression. You hurl your anathemas at the crowned headed tyrants of Russia and Austria, and pride yourselves on your Democratic institutions, while you yourselves consent to be the meretoolsand body-guardsof the tyrants of Virginia and Carolina. Sign up for NewsOne's email newsletter! When you can point to any such laws in reference to the beasts of the field, then I may consent to argue the manhood of the slave. I have detained my audience entirely too long already. Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. They are a trouble to me; I am weary to bear them; and when ye spread forth your hands I will hide mine eyes from you. WebThe Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro by Frederick Douglass. who stand as the very lights of the church, have shamelessly given the sanction of religion and the Bible to the whole slave system. Wind, steam, and lightning are its chartered agents. They perambulate the country, and crowd the highways of the nation, with droves of human stock. 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. But the church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of the slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors. Ex-Senator Benton tells us that the price of men was never higher than now. 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! Add English on-screen subtitles for videos. Hear his savage yells and his blood-chilling oaths, as he hurries on his affrighted captives! 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 Lighthouse Of The Orcas Who Is Foncho, Newborn Photography Course Kent, Articles F