One small step toward understanding gravity, Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is. With brave men there is always a remedy for oppression. It would, certainly, prove nothing, as to what part I might have taken, had I lived during the great controversy of 1776. There, see the old man, with locks thinned and gray. Your fathers esteemed the English Government as the home government; and England as the fatherland. [20]:344. 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. 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. What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? The slaveholders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. Yea! We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. From the round top of your ship of state, dark and threatening clouds may be seen. According to Douglass, these inconsistencies have made the United States the object of mockery and often contempt among the various nations of the world. GAZETTE: Why is it important to do this kind of community-building work at a local level? It is a slander upon their memory, at least, so I believe. Now, there are certain rules of interpretation, for the proper understanding of all legal instruments. 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. welcome anything! [Under the Act] it became illegal not to arrest and return runaway slaves. 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). As the champions of oppressors, the chosen men of American theology have appearedmen, honored for their so-called piety, and their real learning. I will not equivocate; I will not excuse; I will use the severest language I can command; and yet not one word shall escape me that any man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a slaveholder, shall not confess to be right and just.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. The Fugitive Slave Law makes mercy to them a crime; and bribes the judge who tries them. Yet his monument is built up by the price of human blood, and the traders in the bodies and souls of men shoutWe have Washington to our father.Alas! The well-known speech was previously known as The Meaning of July the Fourth for the Negro. Later, the speech was re-titled based on Douglasss question, What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?. From Boston to London is now a holiday excursion. This trade is one of the peculiarities of American institutions. 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. "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? 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. 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. 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 have no right to enjoy a childs share in the labor of your fathers, unless your children are to be blest by your labors. A general shout would go up from the church, demanding repeal, repeal, instant repeal!And it would go hard with that politician who presumed to solicit the votes of the people without inscribing this motto on his banner. Is that a question for Republicans? 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. Your fathers have lived, died, and have done their work, and have done much of it well. After this, he turns his attention to the church. But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. 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. Nobody doubts it. Douglass then discusses the internal slave trade in America. Mark the sad procession, as it moves wearily along, and the inhuman wretch who drives them. You have already declared it. Is it at the gateway? Born into slavery around 1818, Douglass became a key leader of the abolitionist movement. In the end, Douglass wants to keep his hope and faith in humanity high. The sin of which it is guilty is one of omission as well as of commission. By that most foul and fiendish of all human decrees, the liberty and person of every man are put in peril. [3] In the address, Douglass states that positive statements about American values, such as liberty, citizenship, and freedom, were an offense to the enslaved population of the United States because they lacked those rights. Noble men may be found, scattered all over these Northern States, of whom Henry Ward Beecher of Brooklyn, Samuel J. your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery." Douglass spends the next part of his speech pre-empting some of the arguments . These ministers make religion a cold and flinty-hearted thing, having neither principles of right action, nor bowels of compassion. My subject, then fellow-citizens, is AMERICAN SLAVERY. 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. 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." [19]. ROY:One of the things that Douglass writings shows us is that he believed in amplifying a variety of voices. One of the parts of the speech that resonates with me the most is when Douglass says: What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? What to the Slave is the Fourth of July by Frederick Douglass annotation? More than 150 years later, Keidrick Roy, a doctoral student in American Studies at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and a U.S. Air Force veteran, will host a virtual community reading and discussion of the storied speech at the Somerville Museum on Thursday as part of the annual state-wide MassHumanities program Reading Frederick Douglass Together.. Many of its most eloquent Divines. 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. I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July! 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. It is admitted in the fact that Southern statute books are covered with enactments forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, the teaching of the slave to read or to write. 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. Heat and sorrow have nearly consumed their strength; suddenly you hear a quick snap, like the discharge of a rifle; the fetters clank, and the chain rattles simultaneously; your ears are saluted with a scream, that seems to have torn its way to the center of your soul! In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the lame man leap as an hart.But, such is not the state of the case. I will not equivocate; I will not excuse;. O! Douglass details the hardships past Americans once endured when they were members of British colonies and validates their feelings of ill treatment. Thoughts expressed on one side of the Atlantic are, distinctly heard on the other. Long established customs of hurtful character could formerly fence themselves in, and do their evil work with social impunity. Interview was lightly edited for clarity and length. In "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" Frederick Douglass sought not only to convince people of the wrongfulness of slavery but also to make abolition more acceptable to Northern whites. He implored the Rochester, N.Y., audience to think about the ongoing oppression of Black Americans during a holiday celebrating . To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. The Oratory of Fr. The inaugural meeting between six women took place in Corinthian Hall on August 20. In short, it gave the federal government an active role in maintaining the Souths system of slavery. It is the antagonistic force in your government, the only thing that seriously disturbs and endangers your Union. They may also rise in wrath and fury, and bear away, on their angry waves, the accumulated wealth of years of toil and hardship. It is neither. What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? 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. How can we sing the Lords song in a strange land? Douglass builds his argument by using surprising contrasts, plain facts, and provocative antithesis. R, R. Raymond) on the platform, are shining examples; and let me say further, that upon these men lies the duty to inspire our ranks with high religious faith and zeal, and to cheer us on in the great mission of the slaves redemption from his chains.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. 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 strip the love of God of its beauty, and leave the throng of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form. Her speed had faltered under the weight of her child and her chains! Not fewer than forty Americans have, within the past two years, been hunted down and, without a moments warning, hurried away in chains, and consigned to slavery and excruciating torture. The Act also denied suspected slaves trial by jury or even the ability to testify on their own behalf in court. Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe. In the language of Isaiah, the American church might be well addressed, Bring no more vain ablations; incense is an abomination unto me: the new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity even the solemn meeting. 5.0. Senator Berrien tell us that the Constitution is the fundamental law, that which controls all others. There is hope in the thought, and hope is much needed, under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon. Is slavery among them? They perambulate the country, and crowd the highways of the nation, with droves of human stock. 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? Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? 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. Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. 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. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? In 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act had passed Congress as part of the broader Compromise of 1850. What to the Slave is the Fourth of July | Historical Context The Colonial regime paved way for the transportation of slaves from different parts of the world, mostly from the African continent to work in southern states of America on cash crop plantations that generated a great source of income. Tell me citizens, WHERE, under the sun, you can witness a spectacle more fiendish and shocking. Not for thieves and robbers, enemies of society, merely, but for men guilty of no crime. In the second part of the speech, Douglass turns to the present and his own feelings about the 4th of July . Students also viewed by Frederick Douglass 1852 11th Grade Lexile: 1140 Font Size Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) was an African American social reformer, orator, and writer. Who so stolid and selfish, that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nations jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? I scout the idea that the question of the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of slavery is not a question for the people. In a Fourth of July holiday special, we begin with the words of Frederick Douglass. 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. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. 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. It saps the foundation of religion; it makes your name a hissing, and a by word to a mocking earth. 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. 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. Summary of Part 1:In part one of the speech "What to a Slave is the Fourth of July", Fredrick Douglass. The power is co-extensive with the Star-Spangled Banner and American Christianity. I am not that man. What characteristics does he praise about them? [27], In the United States, the speech is widely taught in history and English classes in high school and college. Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? weeping, as she thinks of the mother from whom she has been torn! 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