The sunlight that brought life and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me. Speech Transcript 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. I will not. It is a religion for oppressors, tyrants, man-stealers, andthugs. A RESTful API to access Revs workforce of fast, high quality transcriptionists and captioners. What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? According to this fact, you are, even now, only in the beginning of your national career, still lingering in the period of childhood. Frederick Douglass Read the full transcript here. 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. Your fathers were wise men, and if they did not go mad, they became restive under this treatment. welcome anything! 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. A Nation's Story: What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? WebOn December 3, 1860, Frederick Douglass and a group of fellow abolitionists met at the Tremont Temple Baptist Church in Boston for a discussion centered around the following The minister of American justice is bound by the law to hear butoneside; andthatside, is the side of the oppressor. It is called (in contradistinction to the foreign slave-trade) the internal slave trade. It is, probably, called so, too, in order to divert from it the horror with which the foreign slave-trade is contemplated. That point is conceded already. This celebration also marks the beginning of another year of your national life; and reminds you that the Republic of America is now 76 years old. As with rivers so with nations. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. Would you argue more, and denounce less, would you persuade more, and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed. What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible being? There are 72 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 these same crimes will subject a white man to like punishment. What was possible for him, he sincerely believed was possible for any man who was willing to work hard. I have better employment for my time and strength than such arguments would imply. For it is not light that is needed, but fire. Copyright 2023 Interactive One, LLC. As the champions of oppressors, the chosen men of American theology have appeared men, honored for their so-called piety, and their real learning. The fiat of the Almighty, Let there be Light, has not yet spent its force. Speech-to-Text API for pre-recorded audio, powered by the worlds leading speech recognition engine. Your fathers esteemed the English Government as the home government; and England as the fatherland. Feeling themselves harshly and unjustly treated by the home government, your fathers, like men of honesty, and men of spirit, earnestly sought redress. Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? Their conduct was wholly unexceptionable. speech was delivered on July 5, 1852 as an address to the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society in Rochester, New York. Before you read the speech you can follow these links to learn more about Douglasss life and the evolution of his thought in this period. Short bio of Frederick Douglass The Frederick Douglass Papers Library of Congress That is a branch of knowledge in which you feel, perhaps, a much deeper interest than your speaker. Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, iswrong? We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future. speaking of it relatively, and positively, negatively, and affirmatively. Their statesmanship looked beyond the passing moment, and stretched away in strength into the distant future. They showed forbearance; but that they knew its limits. The task before me is one which requires much previous thought and study for its proper performance. The Celestial Empire, the mystery of ages, is being solved. Do you mean citizens to mock me by asking me to speak today? Frederick Douglass: (02:13) 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. "What to the Slave is the 4th of July?" Speech Transcript "The Lessons of the Hour" Speech by Frederick Douglass On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? Speech For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? It carries your minds back to the day, and to the act of your great deliverance; and to the signs, and to the wonders, associated with that act, and that day. The propriety of the nation must be startled. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing here identified with the American bondsmen, making his wrongs mine. That bolt drawn, that chain broken, and all is lost. The crack you heard, was the sound of the slave-whip; the scream you heard, was from the woman you saw with the babe. Mark the sad procession, as it moves wearily along, and the inhuman wretch who drives them. 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. Americans! Would you argue more and denounce less? 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 meretoolsand body-guardsof the tyrants of Virginia and Carolina. No abuse, no outrage whether in taste, sport or avarice, can now hide itself from the all-pervading light. It is carried on in all the large towns and cities in one-half of this confederacy; and millions are pocketed every year, by dealers in this horrid traffic. You discourse eloquently on the dignity of labor; yet, you sustain a system which, in its very essence, casts a stigma upon labor. But I differ from those who charge this baseness on the framers of the Constitution of the United States. All Rights Reserved. Yet they persevered. It would, certainly, prove nothing, as to what part I might have taken, had I lived during the great controversy of 1776. There I see the tenderest ties ruthlessly broken, to gratify the lust, caprice and rapacity of the buyers and sellers of men. I shall see, this day, and its popular characteristics, from the slaves point of view. Morel is right that the 1876 speech by Frederick Douglass is remarkable and masterful. I say it with a sad sense of disparity between us. The sin of which it is guilty is one of omission as well as of commission. Space is comparatively annihilated. speech 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. As noted here, that banquet was attended by prominent Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? But a change has now come over the affairs of mankind. I am glad, fellow-citizens, that your nation is so young. a horrible reptile is coiled up in your nations bosom; the venomous creature is nursing at the tender breast of your youthful republic;for the love of God, tear away, and fling from you the hideous monster, andlet the weight of twenty millions crush and destroy it forever! You know what is a swine-drover? Frederick Douglass speech - PBS For black men there are neither law, justice, humanity, not religion. Frederick Douglass's, What To the Slave Is the Fourth of Travel through South America. The point from which I am compelled to view them is not, certainly, the most favorable; and yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration. Become a freelancer and work on your own terms. To him, your celebration is a sham, your boasted Liberty, an unholy license, your national greatness, swelling vanity. The hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed and its crimes against God and man must be denounced. This home government, you know, although a considerable distance from your home, did, in the exercise of its parental prerogatives, impose upon its colonial children, such restraints, burdens and limitations, as, in its mature judgment, it deemed wise, right and proper. Senator Berrien tell us that the Constitution is the fundamental law, that which controls all others. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. 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. I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the ring-bolt to the chain of your nations destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. 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. In prosecuting the anti-slavery enterprise, we have been asked to spare the church, to spare the ministry; buthow, we ask, could such a thing be done? It was, Milloy continued, a critique of a nation that claimed to hold dear the principles of freedom, justice and equality even as it enslaved black people.. The far off and almost fabulous Pacific rolls in grandeur at our feet. Frederick Douglass: (07:35) From the Potomac to the Delaware was a journey of many days. Create a better, more engaging experience for every student. Is that a question for Republicans? The most accurate AI-powered transcription on the market. Great streams are not easily turned from channels, worn deep in the course of ages. Speech But the church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of the slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors. There is blasphemy in the thought. The principles contained in that instrument are saving principles. WebFrederick Douglass, Fifth of July speech (1852) O! WebThe Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro by Frederick Douglass. 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. Such people lived then, had lived before, and will, probably, ever have a place on this planet; and their course, in respect to any great change, (no matter how great the good to be attained, or the wrong to be redressed by it), may be calculated with as much precision as can be the course of the stars. They were not the men to look back. Behold the practical operation of this internal slave-trade, the American slave-trade, sustained by American politics and America religion. Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The time for such argument is passed. Is that a question for Republicans? The arm of the Lord is not shortened, and the doom of slavery is certain. Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who 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. 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!
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