frederick douglass speech transcript

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. 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. That I am here to-day is, to me, a matter of astonishment as well as of gratitude. Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetual remembrance. Get a weekly digest of the weeks most important transcripts in your inbox. 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. Your President, your Secretary of State, ourlords,nobles, and ecclesiastics, enforce, as a duty you owe to your free and glorious country, and to your God, that you do this accursed thing. WebA speech celebrating both Lincoln and African Americans freedom wrought by Lincoln. Our Composite Nation: Frederick Douglass America I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the ring-bolt to the chain of your nations destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. They were quiet men; but they did not shrink from agitating against oppression. 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? 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. I say it with a sad sense of disparity between us. Such a declaration of agreement on my part would not be worth much to anybody. WebIn December 1860, the great American orator and former slave Frederick Douglass delivered one of his finest speeches, A Plea for Free Speech in Boston. In it, he boldly declared that liberty is meaningless where the right to utter ones thoughts and WebIn this speech, Frederick Douglass reflected on how the outpouring of joy at the conclusion of the Civil War turned to mourning with Lincolns assassination. These ministers make religion a cold and flinty-hearted thing, having neither principles of right action, nor bowels of compassion. Resolved, That these united colonies are, and of right, ought to be free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown; and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, dissolved.. 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 ions, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? See, too, that girl of thirteen, weeping, yes! I lived on Philpot Street, Fells Point, Baltimore, and have watched from the wharves, the slave ships in the Basin, anchored from the shore, with their cargoes of human flesh, waiting for favorable winds to waft them down the Chesapeake. And it would go hard with that politician who presumed to solicit the votes of the people without inscribing this motto on his banner. Oppression makes a wise man mad. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? For who is there so cold, that a nations sympathy could not warm him? 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. WebFrederick Douglass, July 5, 1852 INTRODUCTION (Exordium) 1. 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. Behold the practical operation of this internal slave-trade, the American slave-trade, sustained by American politics and America religion. There were then no means of concert and combination, such as exist now. My subject, then fellow-citizens, is AMERICAN SLAVERY. The little experience I have had in addressing public meetings, in country schoolhouses, avails me nothing on the present occasion. Follow the drove to New Orleans. Is slavery among them? America is false to the past, false to the present and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. How can we sing the Lords song in a strange land? It saps the foundation of religion; it makes your name a hissing, and a bye-word to a mocking earth. Under these, and innumerable other disadvantages, your fathers declared for liberty and independence and triumphed. Friends and citizens, I need not enter further into the causes which led to this anniversary. For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. The crack you heard, was the sound of the slave-whip; the scream you heard, was from the woman you saw with the babe. 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. 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? They were great men too great enough to give fame to a great age. What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? All Rights Reserved. Fellows citizens, pardon me and allow me to ask, why am I called to speak here today? Though a biting From Boston to London is now a holiday excursion. I have better employment for my time and strength than such arguments would imply. 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. Celebrating Frederick Douglass through Transcription 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. His death, according to Douglass was not only tragic, but also prevented recently freed slaves and African Americans from gaining the ear of wise and well-intentioned leader. Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? 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. Build with the best speech-to-text APIs around. When a child, my soul was often pierced with a sense of its horrors. Senator Berrien tell us that the Constitution is the fundamental law, that which controls all others. The Fugitive SlaveLawmakes mercy to them a crime; and bribes the judge who tries them. WebFrederick Douglass, July 5, 1852 INTRODUCTION (Exordium) 1. Banners and pennants wave exultingly on the breeze. With brave men there is always a remedy for oppression. An American judge gets ten dollars for every victim he consigns to slavery, and five, when he fails to do so. Become a freelancer and work on your own terms. The right of the hunter to his prey stands superior to the right of marriage, and toallrights in this republic, the rights of God included! For who is there so cold that a nation sympathy cannot warm him, who so adore it and dead to the claims of gratitude that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? There are illustrations of it near and remote, ancient and modern. What, to the American Slave, Is Your 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. But the church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of the slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors. Tell me citizens, WHERE, under the sun, you can witness a spectacle more fiendish and shocking. Descendants of Frederick Douglass read excerpts from one of his most famous speeches: What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? Here you will see men and women reared like swine for the market. I cannot. Speech What have I, or those I represent to do with your national independence. 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. Heavy billows, like mountains in the distance, disclose to the leeward huge forms of flinty rocks! The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro by Frederick Douglass At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. Even Mammon seems to have quitted his grasp on this day. Yet his monument is built up by the price of human blood, and the traders in the bodies and souls of men shout We have Washington toour father. Alas! 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. The task before me is one which requires much previous thought and study for its proper performance. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. who stand as the very lights of the church, have shamelessly given the sanction of religion and the Bible to the whole slave system. To do so would be to make myself ridiculous and to offer an insult to your understanding. Read its preamble, consider its purposes. It is not the gentle shower, but thunder. Walled cities and empires have become unfashionable. On July 5, 1852, eminent African American abolitionist Frederick Douglass delivered a brilliant speech to nearly six hundred people filling Rochester, New Yorks Corinthian Hall, as organized by the Rochester Ladies Anti-Slavery Sewing Society. The slave holders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. This is a primary source reading analysis of Frederick Douglass' famous speech. The arm of the Lord is not shortened, and the doom of slavery is certain. To say now that America was right, and England wrong, is exceedingly easy. Frederick Douglass thought that such rationalizations were crap, and he had the right to think so. You were under the British Crown. This trade is one of the peculiarities of American institutions. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. A RESTful API to access Revs workforce of fast, high quality transcriptionists and captioners. Her speed had faltered under the weight of her child and her chains! You may rejoice. That bolt drawn, that chain broken, and all is lost. The whole scene, as I look back to it, was simple, dignified and sublime. For my part, I would say, welcome infidelity! The sin of which it is guilty is one of omission as well as of commission. Transcript Descendants of Frederick Douglass read excerpts from one of his most famous speeches: What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? 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. To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding. 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. Frederick Douglass But a change has now come over the affairs of mankind. It makes its pathway over and under the sea, as well as on the earth. But I differ from those who charge this baseness on the framers of the Constitution of the United States. 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! The text of Frederick Douglasss most famous speech, given in 1852, What, to a slave, is the Fourth of July? A chapter describing Douglasss early encounters with abolitionists, from his autobiography My Bondage and My Freedom, 1857. Thu 5 Jul 2018 07.00 EDT Last modified on Wed 24 Jul 2019 11.58 EDT. Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has 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. Nobody doubts it. 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? Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass gave a speech at an Independence Day celebration organized by the Rochester Ladies Anti-Slavery Society. Frederick Douglass Mark them! The Sharps, the Clarksons, the Wilberforces, the Buxtons, and Burchells and the Knibbs, were alike famous for their piety, and for their philanthropy. 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. 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. 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 burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? They were not the men to look back. For black men there are neither law, justice, humanity, not religion. 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. My business, if I have any here today, is with the present. The manhood of the slave is conceded. Frederick Douglass: (01:08) If I do forget, if I do not 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. Douglass gave this speech to a group of abolitionists 168 years ago. To him, your celebration is a sham, your boasted Liberty, an unholy license, your national greatness, swelling vanity. 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 and write. At a time like this, scorching irony not convincing argument is needed. They may sometimes rise in quiet and stately majesty, and inundate the land, refreshing and fertilizing the earth with their mysterious properties. Racist Ex-University Of Kentucky 'Karen' Sophia Rosing Is Charged For Assaulting Black Student. But now is the time, the important time. The freedom gained is yours; and you, therefore, may properly celebrate this anniversary. Should I seem at ease, my appearance would much misrepresent me. Their solid manhood stands out the more as we contrast it with these degenerate times. Then, I dare to affirm, notwithstanding all I have said before, your fathers stooped, basely stooped. Community Reading: Frederick Douglass's "What Its the news, without the news. The document is in the form of a Google Docs so it has a translation tool, dictionary, and voice to text. "What to the Slave is the 4th of July?" Speech Transcript 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. 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. On the other hand it will be found to contain principles and purposes, entirely hostile to the existence of slavery. It is not that pure and undefiled religion which is from above, and which is first pure, then peaceable, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits,without partiality, and without hypocrisy. But a religion which favors the rich against the poor; which exalts the proud above the humble; which divides mankind into two classes, tyrants and slaves; which says to the man in chains,stay there; and to the oppressor,oppress on; it is a religion which may be professed and enjoyed by all the robbers and enslavers of mankind; it makes God a respecter of persons, denies his fatherhood of the race, and tramples in the dust the great truth of the brotherhood of man. 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, thenwill I argue with you that the slave is a man! They petitioned and remonstrated; they did so in a decorous, respectful, and loyal manner. You know what is a swine-drover? Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth. You live and must die, and you must do your work. 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. I have better employments for my time and strength than such arguments would imply. Now, take the Constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. Your fathers esteemed the English Government as the home government; and England as the fatherland. Albert Barnes but uttered what the common sense of every man at all observant of the actual state of the case will receive as truth, when he declared that There is no power out of the church that could sustain slavery an hour, if it were not sustained in it..