GAZETTE: What is the historical setting for this speech, and why did Douglass focus on the Fourth of July? I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies. 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? Not everyone. They strip the love of God of its beauty, and leave the throng of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form. 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. The 4th of July is the first great fact in your nation's historythe very ring-bolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny. Ever ready to drink, to treat, and to gamble. 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? But a change has now come over the affairs of mankind. They strip the love of God of its beauty, and leave the throng of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form. your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery." Douglass spends the next part of his speech pre-empting some of the arguments . Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? GAZETTE: This is your second year as host of Reading Frederick Douglass Together in Somerville. GAZETTE: Why is it important to do this kind of community-building work at a local level? Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has stronger nerves than I have. and am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! 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. Thoughts expressed on one side of the Atlantic are, distinctly heard on the other. Is it not astonishing that, while we are ploughing, planting and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, silver and gold; that, while we are reading, writing and cyphering, acting as clerks, merchants and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators and teachers; that, while we are engaged in all manner of enterprises common to other men, digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hill-side, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives and children, and, above all, confessing and worshipping the Christians God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave, we are called upon to prove that we are men!Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? 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. By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. It has made itself the bulwark of American slavery, and the shield of American slave-hunters. He thinks they were extremely intelligent, and the thinks it is admirable that when they realized they were oppressed by Britain, they rebelled. On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? True Christians, according to Douglass, should not stand idly by while the rights and liberty of others are stripped away. While drawing encouragement from the Declaration of Independence, the great principles it contains, and the genius of American Institutions, my spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age. whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. It is said that America is built on the idea of liberty and freedom, but Douglass tells his audience that more than anything, it is built on inconsistencies and hypocrisies that have been overlooked for so long they appear to be truths. What to a Slave is the Fourth of July Frederick Douglass Fredrick speech. Douglass also stresses the view that slaves and free Americans are equal in nature. 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 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. Yea! I scout the idea that the question of the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of slavery is not a question for the people. [9][10] He had previously lived in Boston, but did not want his newspaper to interfere with sales of The Liberator, published by William Lloyd Garrison. What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? His own testimony is nothing. Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? dismay. when ye make many prayers, I will not hear. Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? He also wrote a letter to Ida B. You boast of your love of liberty, your superior civilization, and your pure Christianity, while the whole political power of the nation (as embodied in the two great political parties), is solemnly pledged to support and perpetuate the enslavement of three millions of your countrymen. 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. That which is inhuman, cannot be divine! Hear his savage yells and his blood-chilling oaths, as he hurries on his affrighted captives! The Bible addresses all such persons as scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, who pay tithe of mint, anise, and cumin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith.But the church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of the slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors. Douglass then discusses the internal slave trade in America. Because the church stood behind the decision to abolish the selling and buying of people, so did the rest of the country. According to Douglass, these inconsistencies have made the United States the object of mockery and often contempt among the various nations of the world. The 'Address' may be had at this office, price ten cents, a single copy, or six dollars per hundred. Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? He celebrates the efforts of the founding fathers of America for fighting back against the tyranny of England.[18]. official permission or approval. your republican politics, not less than your republican religion, are flagrantly inconsistent. Frederick Douglass, born a slave and later the most influential African American leader of the 1800s, addresses the hypocrisy of the US of maintaining slavery with its upheld ideals being freedom and independence on July 4th, 1852. Your lawmakers have commanded all good citizens to engage in this hellish sport. See this drove sold and separated forever; and never forget the deep, sad sobs that arose from that scattered multitude. During the 1850's, the Fourth of July served as a reminder of the many horrors and injustices in the world. 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. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully 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! To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world. See, too, that girl of thirteen, weeping, yes! I will show you a man-drover. 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. He can bring no witnesses for himself. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. As the sheet anchor takes a firmer hold, when the ship is tossed by the storm, so did the cause of your fathers grow stronger, as it breasted the chilling blasts of kingly displeasure. No! The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The iron shoe, and crippled foot of China must be seen, in contrast with nature. There should be no shoulder that does not bear the burden of the government. He had a prophetic vision for the future that he was always trying to work toward. The speech has since been published under the above title in The Frederick Douglass Papers, Series One, Vol. 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. Keidrick Roy, the host of the virtual reading event. To the slave, Douglass tells the audience, "your 4th of July is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license [for enslaving blacks] . Here you will see men and women reared like swine for the market. They may also rise in wrath and fury, and bear away, on their angry waves, the accumulated wealth of years of toil and hardship. The speech notes the contradiction of the national ethos of United States and the way enslaved persons are treated. 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. 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. With brave men there is always a remedy for oppression. Frederick Douglass, circa 1879. You have no right to wear out and waste the hard-earned fame of your fathers to cover your indolence. 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. Worksheet Excerpt Analyzing Rhetorical Devices in "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?": 15 November's Documents in Detail webinar was about Frederick Douglass's What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?, his oration delivered on 5 July 1862. What characteristics does he praise about them? Her speed had faltered under the weight of her child and her chains! What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? Genius is the ultimate source of music knowledge, created by scholars like you who share facts and insight about the songs and artists they love. Senator Berrien tell us that the Constitution is the fundamental law, that which controls all others. Born into slavery around 1818, Douglass became a key leader of the abolitionist. Before you read the speech you can follow these links to learn more about Douglass's life and the evolution of his thought in this period. Noble men may be found, scattered all over these Northern States, of whom Henry Ward Beecher of Brooklyn, Samuel J. ROY:One of the things that Douglass writings shows us is that he believed in amplifying a variety of voices. 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. 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. weeping, as she thinks of the mother from whom she has been torn! Born into slavery around 1818, Douglass became a key leader of the abolitionist movement. Who can reason on such a proposition? The charter of our liberties, which every citizen has a personal interest in understanding thoroughly. That people contented themselves under the shadow of Abrahams great name, while they repudiated the deeds which made his name great. Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. 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. There are illustrations of it near and remote, ancient and modern. This Fourth [of] July is yours, not mine. They felt themselves the victims of grievous wrongs, wholly incurable in their colonial capacity. Knowledge is becoming more readily available, Douglass said, and soon the American people will open their eyes to the atrocities they have been inflicting on their fellow Americans. we wept when we remembered Zion. The slaveholders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. 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. Washington could not die till he had broken the chains of his slaves. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. 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. We need individual events like reading Douglass, but we also need to be thinking about ways to extend this conversation over the long term. 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.. 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. Three score years and ten is the allotted time for individual men; but nations number their years by thousands. sanction. In short, it gave the federal government an active role in maintaining the Souths system of slavery. What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, lowering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin! They may sometimes rise in quiet and stately majesty, and inundate the land, refreshing and fertilizing the earth with their mysterious properties. 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.Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.Take the American slave-trade, which, we are told by the papers, is especially prosperous just now. Your fathers have lived, died, and have done their work, and have done much of it well. 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. After this, he turns his attention to the church. . How can we sing the Lords song in a strange land? 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. You may rejoice, I must mourn. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth. By an act of the American Congress, not yet two years old, slavery has been nationalized in its most horrible and revolting form. May of Syracuse, and my esteemed friend (Rev. You know what is a swine-drover? They petitioned and remonstrated; they did so in a decorous, respectful, and loyal manner. In several states, this trade is a chief source of wealth. 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. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day?
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