All this we affirm to be true of the popular church, and the popular worship of our land and nation a religion, a church, and a worship which, on the authority of inspired wisdom, we pronounce to be an abomination in the sight of God. Your fathers have lived, died, and have done their work, and have done much of it well. On 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 orator, often traveling six months out of the year to give lectures on abolition. 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. there is no matter in respect to which, the people of the North have allowed themselves to be so ruinously imposed upon, as that of the pro-slavery character of the Constitution. 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Did this law concern the mint, anise, and cuminabridge the fight 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. 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. A self-taught man, he escaped from slavery and eventually became a leader in the abolitionist movement. From Boston to London is now a holiday excursion. Walled cities and empires have become unfashionable. 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. Not for thieves and robbers, enemies of society, merely, but for men guilty of no crime. There is hope in the thought, and hope is much needed, under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon. 5.0. [26] After the Civil War, Douglass said that "we" had achieved a great thing by gaining American independence during the American Revolutionary War, though he said it was not as great as what was achieved by the Civil War. weeping, as she thinks of the mother from whom she has been torn! Your fathers esteemed the English Government as the home government; and England as the fatherland. Douglass believed that slavery could be eliminated with the support of the church, and also with the reexamination of what the Bible was actually saying. Douglass says that if the residents of America believe that slaves are "men",[20]:342 they should be treated as such. Douglass builds his argument by using surprising contrasts, plain facts, and provocative antithesis. The Fugitive Slave Law makes mercy to them a crime; and bribes the judge who tries them. (1982). And it also imposed severe penalties on anyone who helped enslaved people to escape. We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future. No abuse, no outrage whether in taste, sport or avarice, can now hide itself from the all-pervading light. that gash on her shoulder tells her to move on. [13] Although the import of people directly from Africa had been banned in 1807,[14] the domestic slave trade, still legal, was thriving. May of Syracuse, and my esteemed friend (Rev. Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetual remembrance. He describes the legislation as "tyrannical," and believes that it is in "violation of justice.". They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. "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. Wells, which was incorporated into the preface of her 1892 pamphlet Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases.. [20]:344. ROY: The better we get to know the people that we live with, that we work around, that we see at the coffee shop, and the more we talk about these important racial issues with one another, the easier it will be to heal our divided communities. 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.I take this law to be one of the grossest infringements of Christian Liberty, and, if the churches and ministers of our country were not stupidly blind, or most wickedly indifferent, they, too, would so regard it.At the very moment that they are thanking God for the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty, and for the right to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences, they are utterly silent in respect to a law which robs religion of its chief significance, and makes it utterly worthless to a world lying in wickedness. Of this sort of change they are always strongly in favor. 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! 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". The United States does not have to stay the way it is. Everywhere, in this country, it is safe to speak of this foreign slave-trade, as a most inhuman traffic, opposed alike to the laws of God and of man. But a change has now come over the affairs of mankind. 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 sin of which it is guilty is one of omission as well as of commission. It is neither. [16] Additionally, it awarded $10 to a judge who sentenced an individual to return to enslavement, while awarding only $5 if the claim was dismissed. The inaugural meeting between six women took place in Corinthian Hall on August 20. I shall see, this day, and its popular characteristics, from the slaves point of view. Noble men may be found, scattered all over these Northern States, of whom Henry Ward Beecher of Brooklyn, Samuel J. Feeling themselves harshly and unjustly treated by the home government, your fathers, like men of honesty, and men of spirit, earnestly sought redress. On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? Another remarkable thing about Douglass is that he was an early champion of voting rights for women. He talks about how Americans are proud of their country and their religion and how they rejoice in the name of freedom and liberty and yet they do not offer those things to millions of their country's residents. How can we sing the Lords song in a strange land? Douglass also stresses the view that slaves and free Americans are equal in nature. 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. They felt themselves the victims of grievous wrongs, wholly incurable in their colonial capacity. Yea! From what quarter, I beg to know, has proceeded a fire so deadly upon our ranks, during the last two years, as from the Northern pulpit? Random House. 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. [Throughout the speech] Douglass looks at the contradictions between the reality of slavery and the lofty claims of a just society outlined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. 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.The flesh-mongers gather up their victims by dozens, and drive them, chained, to the general depot at Baltimore. I was glad to find one who sympathized with me in my horror.Fellow-citizens, this murderous traffic is, to-day, in active operation in this boasted republic. GAZETTE: What is the historical setting for this speech, and why did Douglass focus on the Fourth of July? Assignment in book chapter School Alief Early College High School Course English language and literature (ELL2002) Uploaded by God Academic year2021/2022 Helpful? These gentlemen have, as I think, fully and clearly vindicated the Constitution from any design to support slavery for an hour.Fellow-citizens! Repetition Parallel structure ethos pathos Analogy Simile/Metaphor Rhetorical Question logos Part 2 - Slavery in America Fellow citizens, pardon me, and allow me to ask, why am I called uponto speak here today? But we also need to invest as a city and as a society into reading and learning more about the present realities of oppressed peoples. He expresses his belief in the speech that he and other slaves are fighting the same fight in terms of wishing to be free that White Americans, the ancestors of the white people he is addressing, fought seventy years earlier. You may rejoice, I must mourn. 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. The occasion was the Society's Fourth of July celebration, but Douglass refused to give the speech on July 4; he would not celebrate the holiday so long as African Americans remained enslaved. Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. 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. The accepted time with God and his cause is the ever-living now. The manhood of the slave is conceded. 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. 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! Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? 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 speech notes the contradiction of the national ethos of United States and the way enslaved persons are treated. Kate Harris Date Published September 28, 2016 Last Modified November 14, 2021 Description. Follow the drove to New Orleans. your republican politics, not less than your republican religion, are flagrantly inconsistent. Long established customs of hurtful character could formerly fence themselves in, and do their evil work with social impunity. 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. 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. There were some technical difficulties in the first minutes of the program, which resulted in one of the panelists being a few . I will not equivocate; I will not excuse;. By an act of the American Congress, not yet two years old, slavery has been nationalized in its most horrible and revolting form. The anguish of my boyish heart was intense; and I was often consoled, when speaking to my mistress in the morning, to hear her say that the custom was very wicked; that she hated to hear the rattle of the chains, and the heart-rending cries. It is the antagonistic force in your government, the only thing that seriously disturbs and endangers your Union. The speech has since been published under the above title in The Frederick Douglass Papers, Series One, Vol. If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. 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. The4th of July is the first great fact in your nation's history the very ringbolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destinyPride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetualremembrance. 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. 2003. we wept when we remembered Zion. With brave men there is always a remedy for oppression. 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. According to Douglass, these inconsistencies have made the United States the object of mockery and often contempt among the various nations of the world. That people contented themselves under the shadow of Abrahams great name, while they repudiated the deeds which made his name great. To find out what elements make the speech 'What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?' How digital misinformation may keep you from a good nights sleep, Study finds surgical patients with addiction issues may be at greater risk for complications, including sudden cardiac death after anesthesia, Khalil Gibran Muhammad says College Board needs to stand firm behind curriculum, Chief counsel of respected mid-70s Senate inquiry into improper federal investigations says credibility of oversight function at stake, 2023 The President and Fellows of Harvard College, Photo courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration, By Manisha Aggarwal-Schifellite Harvard Staff Writer, 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. It destroys your moral power abroad; it corrupts your politicians at home. The 'Address' may be had at this office, price ten cents, a single copy, or six dollars per hundred. 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. 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? By that most foul and fiendish of all human decrees, the liberty and person of every man are put in peril. The existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretence, and your Christianity as a lie. To arrest it, to put an end to it, this nation keeps a squadron, at immense cost, on the coast of Africa. He celebrates the efforts of the founding fathers of America for fighting back against the tyranny of England.[18]. Oh! The 4th of July is the first great fact in your nations historythe very ring-bolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny. Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? In his speech, "The Hypocrisy of American Slavery . or is it in the temple? Hear his savage yells and his blood-chilling oaths, as he hurries on his affrighted captives! During the Civil War, Douglass said that since Massachusetts had been the first state to join the Patriot cause during the American Revolutionary War, black men should go to Massachusetts to enlist in the Union Army. On July 5, 1852, in . we wept when we remembered Zion. I repeat, I am glad this is so. But, while the river may not be turned aside, it may dry up, and leave nothing behind but the withered branch, and the unsightly rock, to howl in the abyss-sweeping wind, the sad tale of departed glory. Space is comparatively annihilated. How can we sing the Lords song in a strange land? [12], According to the 1850 Census, there were around 3.2 million enslaved persons in the United States. The little experience I have had in addressing public meetings, in country schoolhouses, avails me nothing on the present occasion. 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. 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. This page was last edited on 5 February 2023, at 19:31. welcome atheism! In 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act had passed Congress as part of the broader Compromise of 1850. To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding.There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, that does not know that slavery is wrong for him.What, am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to bum their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? 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. To abolish slavery technical difficulties in the chain of your yet undeveloped.! Published September 28, 2016 Last Modified November 14, 2021 Description legislation as `` tyrannical ''... 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