Mark the sad procession, as it moves wearily along, and the inhuman wretch who drives them. Rhetoricians R. L. Heath and D. Waymer refer to this as the "paradox of the positive" because it highlights how something positive and meant to be positive can also exclude individuals. 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! A worship that can be conducted by persons who refuse to give shelter to the houseless, to give bread to the hungry, clothing to the naked, and who enjoin obedience to a law forbidding these acts of mercy, is a curse, not a blessing to mankind. They hate all changes, but silver, gold and copper change! 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. It is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. It makes its pathway over and under the sea, as well as on the earth. Table of Contents. These gentlemen have, as I think, fully and clearly vindicated the Constitution from any design to support slavery for an hour.Fellow-citizens! The crack you heard, was the sound of the slave-whip; the scream you heard, was from the woman you saw with the babe. These people were called Tories in the days of your fathers. It saps the foundation of religion; it makes your name a hissing, and a by word to a mocking earth. Your fathers esteemed the English Government as the home government; and England as the fatherland. He wrote and presented a speech that challenged . 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. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Frederick Douglass, ca 1855, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Where these go, may also go the merciless slave-hunter. 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. "[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. The sin of which it is guilty is one of omission as well as of commission. Oppression makes a wise man mad. To all inspiring motives, to noble deeds which can be gained from the past, we are welcome. These rules are well established. 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. If youre not a person of color, its one thing to go to a couple of events or protests, or to read a few articles and move on. 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. See this drove sold and separated forever; and never forget the deep, sad sobs that arose from that scattered multitude. Nobody doubts it. Further, if this demand were not complied with, another Scotland would be added to the history of religious liberty, and the stern old Covenanters would be thrown into the shade. [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. The drove moves tardily. Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? This trade is one of the peculiarities of American institutions. Thoughts expressed on one side of the Atlantic are, distinctly heard on the other. 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. 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. In spite of his praise of the Founding Fathers, he maintains that slaves owe nothing to and have no positive feelings towards the founding of the United States. Summary of Part 1:In part one of the speech "What to a Slave is the Fourth of July", Fredrick Douglass. Douglass equates this to being worse than many other things that are banned, in particular, books and plays that are banned for infidelity. So its important that our city and our society are outraged by the recent murders of unarmed black people. It is a slander upon their memory, at least, so I believe. It has made itself the bulwark of American slavery, and the shield of American slave-hunters. For black men there are neither law, justice, humanity, not religion. Your broad republican domain is hunting ground for men. On July 5, 1852, in . Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? Is slavery among them? Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? 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? [20]:345He also attempts to demonstrate the irony of their inability to sympathize with the Black people they oppressed in cruel ways that the forefathers they valorized never experienced. Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? 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! The time was when such could be done. 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. A self-taught man, he escaped from slavery and eventually became a leader in the abolitionist movement. Douglass then returns to the topic of the founding of the United States. Cling to this daycling to it, and to its principles, with the grasp of a storm-tossed mariner to a spar at midnight, Neither steam nor lightning had then been reduced to order and discipline, With them, justice, liberty and humanity were final; not slavery and oppression. However, if slavery were abolished and equal rights given to all, that would no longer be the case. 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 fact that the church of our country, (with fractional exceptions), does not esteem the Fugitive Slave Law as a declaration of war against religious liberty, implies that that church regards religion simply as a form of worship, an empty ceremony, and not a vital principle, requiring active benevolence, justice, love and good will towards man. And instead of being the honest men I have before declared them to be, they were the veriest imposters that ever practiced on mankind. 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! 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. ARI . Noble men may be found, scattered all over these Northern States, of whom Henry Ward Beecher of Brooklyn, Samuel J. It is a religion for oppressors, tyrants, man-stealers, and thugs. The founding fathers left black people and women out of these rights for "everyone." The anti-slavery movement there was not an anti-church movement, for the reason that the church took its full share in prosecuting that movement: and the anti-slavery movement in this country will cease to be an anti-church movement, when the church of this country shall assume a favorable, instead or a hostile position towards that movement. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth. In order to put an end to it, some of these last have consented that their colored brethren (nominally free) should leave this country, and establish themselves on the western coast of Africa! There are seventy-two 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 the same crimes will subject a white man to the like punishment. I shall see, this day, and its popular characteristics, from the slaves point of view. One small step toward understanding gravity, Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is. 2. Knowledge was then confined and enjoyed by the privileged few, and the multitude walked on in mental darkness. whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. [11] Additionally, he had spoken there less than three months prior to this speech, on March 25. 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. There is hope in the thought, and hope is much needed, under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon. When the dogs in your streets, when the fowls of the air, when the cattle on your hills, when the fish of the sea, and the reptiles that crawl, shall be unable to distinguish the slave from a brute, then will I argue with you that the slave is a man!For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. They petitioned and remonstrated; they did so in a decorous, respectful, and loyal manner. The time for such argument is passed.At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. Feeling themselves harshly and unjustly treated by the home government, your fathers, like men of honesty, and men of spirit, earnestly sought redress. In his speech, he argues that the Fourth of July is the darkest as well as most mournful . To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisya thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. The eye of the reformer is met with angry flashes, portending disastrous times; but his heart may well beat lighter at the thought that America is young, and that she is still in the impressible stage of her existence. in preference to the gospel, as preached by those Divines! The Fugitive Slave Law makes mercy to them a crime; and bribes the judge who tries them. we wept when we remembered Zion. By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. To . 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. What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? Read its preamble, consider its purposes. Great for your high school American Literature class. Read its preamble, consider its purposes. How should I look to-day, in the presence of Americans, dividing, and subdividing a discourse, to show that men have a natural right to freedom? Wind, steam, and lightning are its chartered agents. No! we wept when we remembered Zion. In short, it gave the federal government an active role in maintaining the Souths system of slavery. 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. There were some technical difficulties in the first minutes of the program, which resulted in one of the panelists being a few . They strip the love of God of its beauty, and leave the throng of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form. 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. 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. I scout the idea that the question of the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of slavery is not a question for the people. What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible being? Yea! 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. In 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act had passed Congress as part of the broader Compromise of 1850. 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. By an act of the American Congress, not yet two years old, slavery has been nationalized in its most horrible and revolting form. Of this sort of change they are always strongly in favor. On the other hand it will be found to contain principles and purposes, entirely hostile to the existence of slavery.I have detained my audience entirely too long already. From the slave prison to the ship, they are usually driven in the darkness of night; for since the antislavery agitation, a certain caution is observed.In the deep still darkness of midnight, I have been often aroused by the dead heavy footsteps, and the piteous cries of the chained gangs that passed our door. He celebrates the efforts of the founding fathers of America for fighting back against the tyranny of England.[18]. They may also rise in wrath and fury, and bear away, on their angry waves, the accumulated wealth of years of toil and hardship. As the champions of oppressors, the chosen men of American theology have appearedmen, honored for their so-called piety, and their real learning. Heavy billows, like mountains in the distance, disclose to the leeward huge forms of flinty rocks! 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 mere tools and body-guards of the tyrants of Virginia and Carolina. 4th period Mrs. Landrew Fredrick Douglass Frederick Douglass was an escaped slave who became a prominent activist, author and public speaker. The power is co-extensive with the Star-Spangled Banner and American Christianity. Products. 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. The Celestial Empire, the mystery of ages, is being solved. It esteems sacrifice above mercy; psalm-singing above right doing; solemn meetings above practical righteousness. They may sometimes rise in quiet and stately majesty, and inundate the land, refreshing and fertilizing the earth with their mysterious properties. 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