The timid and the prudent (as has been intimated) of that day, were, of course, shocked and alarmed by it. 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. And while slavery has long been abolished and outlawed, the sentiment behind the address still applies in many unfortunate ways when it comes to the overall Black experience in America. According to this fact, you are, even now, only in the beginning of your national career, still lingering in the period of childhood. They were great in their day and generation. welcome anything! I answer: a day that reveals to him more than all other days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. welcome atheism! Under Title 17 U.S.C. As noted here, that banquet was attended by prominent Oceans no longer divide, but link nations together. 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. At some future period I will gladly avail myself of an opportunity to give this subject a full and fair discussion. The slave holders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. The din of business, too, is hushed. 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. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. 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. Heavy billows, like mountains in the distance, disclose to the leeward huge forms of flinty rocks! That which is inhuman, cannot be divine! For 186 years this doctrine of national independence has shaken the globeand it remains the most powerful force anywhere in the world today. They saw themselves treated with sovereign indifference, coldness and scorn. Read the full text below of the sage words from one of the greatest orators of all time. Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. Whether we turn to the declarations of the past or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. that gash on her shoulder tells her to move on. Who can reason on such a proposition? Yea! Standing here identified with the American bondsmen, making his wrongs mine. That is a branch of knowledge in which you feel, perhaps, a much deeper interest than your speaker. WebFrederick Douglass, July 5, 1852 INTRODUCTION (Exordium) 1. I take it, therefore, that it is not presumption in a private citizen to form an opinion of that instrument. With head, and heart, and hand Ill strive, 8 Times Obama Showed Trump How Presidents Are Supposed To Celebrate The Fourth Of July, Welcome To The Cookout: 10 Lit Movies To Watch During July Fourth Holiday Weekend, 'Dilbert' Comic Creator Calls Black People A 'Hate Group,' Urges Segregation So Whites Can 'Escape', Bernie Mac Show Star Camille Winbush Is Not Ashamed Of Joining OnlyFans, Kyle Rittenhouse Faces 2nd Civil Lawsuit, Continues To Beg For Money From His Supporters, Ben Stein's 'Aunt Jemima' Rant Is A Master Class On White Privilege, Why Did tWitch Kill Himself? For there, they that carried us away captive, required of us a song; and they who wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. Web"The Lessons of the Hour" Speech by Frederick Douglass, January 9, 1894 Friends and Fellow Citizens : No man should come before an audience like the one by whose presence I am now honored, without a noble object and a fixed and earnest purpose. I remember, also, that, as a people, Americans are remarkably familiar with all facts which make in their own favor. The 4th of July is the first great fact in your nations history the very ring-bolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny. There is consolation in the thought that America is young. 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. This certainly sounds large, and out of the common way, for it is true that I have often had the privilege to speak in this beautiful Hall, and to address many who now honor me with their presence. It is neither. You have already declared it. President John F. Kennedy On July 4, 1962 President John F. Kennedy delivered this speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Ex-Senator Benton tells us that the price of men was never higher than now. I trust, however, that mine will not be so considered. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? From police shootings to the wage gap to crippling stereotypes (and everything in between), there are too many parallels today with what Douglass described in his speech to white America, including this relevant line. It was demanded, in the name of humanity, and according to the law of the living God. You profess to believe that, of one blood, God made all nations of men to dwell on the face of all the earth, and hath commanded all men, everywhere to love one another; yet you notoriously hate, (and glory in your hatred), all men whose skins are not colored like your own. They seized upon eternal principles, and set a glorious example in their defense. It has been denounced with burning words, from the high places of the nation, as an execrable traffic. They petitioned and remonstrated; they did so in a decorous, respectful, and loyal manner. What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible being? Behold the practical operation of this internal slave-trade, the American slave-trade, sustained by American politics and America religion. The simple story of it is that, 76 years ago, the people of this country were British subjects. It is not the gentle shower, but thunder. The little experience I have had in addressing public meetings, in country schoolhouses, avails me nothing on the present occasion. An American judge gets ten dollars for every victim he consigns to slavery, and five, when he fails to do so. You discourse eloquently on the dignity of labor; yet, you sustain a system which, in its very essence, casts a stigma upon labor. 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. Roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world. As noted here, that banquet was attended by prominent African-American professional men in celebration of the twenty-first anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation.After the toast provided by former Senator Blanche K. Bruce, The Sharps, the Clarksons, the Wilberforces, the Buxtons, and Burchells and the Knibbs, were alike famous for their piety, and for their philanthropy. Frederick Douglass thought that such rationalizations were crap, and he had the right to think so. How should I look today in the presence of Americans dividing and subdividing, a discourse to show that men have a natural right to freedom speaking of it, relatively and positively, negatively and affirmatively? Under these, and innumerable other disadvantages, your fathers declared for liberty and independence and triumphed. Not for thieves and robbers, enemies of society, merely, but for men guilty of no crime. I leave, therefore, the great deeds of your fathers to other gentlemen whose claim to have been regularly descended will be less likely to be disputed than mine! Your broad republican domain is hunting ground formen. You have already declared it. I scarcely need say, fellow-citizens, that my opinion of those measures fully accords with that of your fathers. I hold that every American citizen has a right to form an opinion of the constitution, and to propagate that opinion, and to use all honorable means to make his opinion the prevailing one. In glaring violation of justice, in shameless disregard of the forms of administering law, in cunning arrangement to entrap the defenseless, and in diabolical intent, this Fugitive Slave Law stands alone in the annals of tyrannical legislation. You could instruct me in regard to them. With little experience and with less learning, I have been able to throw my thoughts hastily and imperfectly together; and 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. If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. It was a startling idea, much more so, than we, at this distance of time, regard it. To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding. But, with that blindness which seems to be the unvarying characteristic of tyrants, since Pharaoh and his hosts were drowned in the Red Sea, the British Government persisted in the exactions complained of. Speech-to-Text API for pre-recorded audio, powered by the worlds leading speech recognition engine. 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. 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? And instead of being the honest men I have before declared them to be, they were the veriest imposters that ever practiced on mankind. Frederick Douglass: (04:09) Our eyes are met with demonstrations of joyous enthusiasm. Feeling themselves harshly and unjustly treated by the home government, your fathers, like men of honesty, and men of spirit, earnestly sought redress. Standing, there, identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, 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! It is a slander upon their memory, at least, so I believe. You may well cherish the memory of such men. 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. You were under the British Crown. Read its preamble, consider its purposes. They did so in the form of a resolution; and as we seldom hit upon resolutions, drawn up in our day whose transparency is at all equal to this, it may refresh your minds and help my story if I read it. Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? The blessings in which you this day rejoice are not enjoyed in common. It fetters your progress; it is the enemy of improvement, the deadly foe of education; it fosters pride; it breeds insolence; it promotes vice; it shelters crime; it is a curse to the earth that supports it; and yet, you cling to it, as if it were the sheet anchor of all your hopes. 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. There, the question of emancipation was a high religious question. in preference to the gospel,as preached by those Divines! 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. The papers and placards say, that I am to deliver a 4th [of] July oration. Transcribe your audio files to find high-impact insights in minutes. Nobody doubts it. Translated on-screen subtitles for videos. My subject then, fellow citizens, is American slavery. Of this sort of change they are always strongly in favor. Fellow-citizens, I shall not presume to dwell at length on the associations that cluster about this day. 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. In several states, this trade is a chief source of wealth. I am glad, fellow-citizens, that your nation is so young. I do not remember ever to have appeared as a speaker before any assembly more shrinkingly, nor with greater distrust of my ability, than I do this day. 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. He rose from the shackles of slavery to become an author, newspaper publisher, and respected abolitionist. The fact is, ladies and gentlemen, the distance between this platform and the slave plantation, from which I escaped, is considerable and the difficulties to be overcome in getting from the latter to the former, are by no means slight. 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. The message of Frederick Douglasss 1852 speech on the contradiction of Americas just ideals and unjust realities endures. Were the nation older, the patriots heart might be sadder, and the reformers brow heavier. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will in the name of humanity, which is outraged in the name of Liberty, which is fettered in the name of the constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon dare to call and question and to denounce with all the emphasis I can command everything that serves to perpetuate slavery, the great sin and shame of America. There is hope in the thought, and hope is much needed, under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon. WebDescription. Your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless, your shouts of Liberty and equality, hallow mocked, your prayers and hymns your sermons and Thanksgivings with all your religious parade in solemnity are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, a thin veil to cover up crimes, which would disgrace a nation of savages. The power is co-extensive with the Star-Spangled Banner and American Christianity. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery. Transcripts & captions for a better media workflow. 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. 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. This truth is not a doubtful one. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. 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. who stand as the very lights of the church, have shamelessly given the sanction of religion and the Bible to the whole slave system. Cling to this day cling to it, and to its principles, with the grasp of a storm-tossed mariner to a spar at midnight. A general shout would go up from the church, demanding repeal, repeal, instant repeal! Section 107, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. They have all been taught in your common schools, narrated at your firesides, unfolded from your pulpits, and thundered from your legislative halls, and are as familiar to you as household words. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. Frederick Douglass: (01:08) Try Rev and save time transcribing, captioning, and subtitling. Their statesmanship looked beyond the passing moment, and stretched away in strength into the distant future. 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, andnota vital principle, requiring active benevolence, justice, love and good will towards man. On the 2d of July, 1776, the old Continental Congress, to the dismay of the lovers of ease, and the worshipers of property, clothed that dreadful idea with all the authority of national sanction. Suicide Note Revealed After Shocking Death, Mississippi Cops Beat, Waterboarded Handcuffed Black Men, Shot 1 For Dating White Women': Lawyers, Indicted! Frederick Douglass: (00:26) And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation Babylon, whose crimes towering up to heaven with thrown down by the breadth of the almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin. In a final celebratory post for Black History Month 2023, it is worth returning to the 1883 Douglass Banquet. There I see the tenderest ties ruthlessly broken, to gratify the lust, caprice and rapacity of the buyers and sellers of men. 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 hypocrisy a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. WebAn excerpt from the 1847 Frederick Douglass speech given for the anniversary of the American Anti-Slavery Society. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? 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. The questions are designed to provoke thought and guide the students through the document. The task before me is one which requires much previous thought and study for its proper performance. Need I remind you that a similar thing is being done all over this country to-day? The sunlight that brought life and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Many of you understand them better than I do. 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. There is blasphemy in the thought. we wept when we remembered Zion. For it is not light that is needed, but fire. 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. It is a religion for oppressors, tyrants, man-stealers, andthugs. I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slaves point of view. 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? Create a better, more engaging experience for every student. I will show you a man-drover. Frederick Douglass: (08:30) The time was when such could be done. The ear-piercing fife and the stirring drum unite their accents with the ascending peal of a thousand church bells. Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. The hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed and its crimes against God and man must be denounced. In their admiration of liberty, they lost sight of all other interests. From the round top of your ship of state, dark and threatening clouds may be seen. The freedom gained is yours; and you, therefore, may properly celebrate this anniversary. Your fathers esteemed the English Government as the home government; and England as the fatherland. This, however, did not answer the purpose. Is that a question for Republicans? But, your fathers, who had not adopted the fashionable idea of this day, of the infallibility of government, and the absolute character of its acts, presumed to differ from the home government in respect to the wisdom and the justice of some of those burdens and restraints. Convert your audio or video into 99% accurate text by a professional. WebA speech celebrating both Lincoln and African Americans freedom wrought by Lincoln. I have detained my audience entirely too long already. That I am here to-day is, to me, a matter of astonishment as well as of gratitude. In a final celebratory post for Black History Month 2023, it is worth returning to the 1883 Douglass Banquet. The manhood of the slave is conceded. By that most foul and fiendish of all human decrees, the liberty and person of every man are put in peril. Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. That trade has long since been denounced by this government, as piracy. I think that, in whatever else I may be deficient, I have By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Frederick Douglass: (09:38) You will see one of these human flesh-jobbers, armed with pistol, whip and bowie-knife, driving a company of a hundred men, women, and children, from the Potomac to the slave market at New Orleans. How unlike the politicians of an hour! America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass gave a speech at an Independence Day celebration organized by the Rochester Ladies Anti-Slavery Society. Fellow-citizens; above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! The arm of the Lord is not shortened, and the doom of slavery is certain. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. Douglass gave this speech to a group of abolitionists 168 years ago. They felt themselves the victims of grievous wrongs, wholly incurable in their colonial capacity. 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. Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has The Best Speech-to-Text Solution for Your Business Learn how Rev fits into your businesses workflow. Who can reason on such a proposition? The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.
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