Great streams are not easily turned from channels, worn deep in the course of ages. From what quarter, I beg to know, has proceeded a fire so deadly upon our ranks, during the last two years, as from the Northern pulpit? He wrote a glowing letter of encouragement to Harriet Tubman, which served as the preface to Sarah Bradfords 1869 biography about Tubmans life. At the same time, we need to be studying the history of slavery and racism in this country so we can build policies, practices, and procedures that address the present problems with those historical inequities in mind. Born into slavery around 1818, Douglass became a key leader of the abolitionist movement. Where these are, man is not sacred. It makes its pathway over and under the sea, as well as on the earth. We are met on the threshold of our efforts for the redemption of the slave, by the church and ministry of the country, in battle arrayed against us; and we are compelled to fight or flee. There are illustrations of it near and remote, ancient and modern. He argues that though the international slave trade is correctly decried as abhorrent, the people of the United States are far less vocal in their opposition to domestic slave trade. Is that a question for Republicans? There was, at that time, a grand slave mart kept at the head of Pratt Street, by Austin Woldfolk. According to this fact, you are, even now, only in the beginning of your national career, still lingering in the period of childhood. What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible being? The inaugural meeting between six women took place in Corinthian Hall on August 20. Noble men may be found, scattered all over these Northern States, of whom Henry Ward Beecher of Brooklyn, Samuel J. be warned! Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. GAZETTE: Why is it important to do this kind of community-building work at a local level? Douglass declares that true freedom can not exist in America if Black people are still enslaved there and is adamant that the end of slavery is near. Attend the auction; see men examined like horses; see the forms of women rudely and brutally exposed to the shocking gaze of American slave-buyers. There, the church, true to its mission of ameliorating, elevating, and improving the condition of mankind, came forward promptly, bound up the wounds of the West Indian slave, and restored him to his liberty. Where these go, may also go the merciless slave-hunter. No abuse, no outrage whether in taste, sport or avarice, can now hide itself from the all-pervading light. The well-known speech was previously known as The Meaning of July the Fourth for the Negro. Later, the speech was re-titled based on Douglasss question, What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?. He mentions the fact to show that slavery is in no danger. O! But, with that blindness which seems to be the unvarying characteristic of tyrants, since Pharaoh and his hosts were drowned in the Red Sea. He implored the Rochester, N.Y., audience to think about the ongoing oppression of Black Americans during a holiday celebrating . 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. With this product, you can choose to either have your students read the entire speech and annotate and analyze Douglass' rhetorical devices or you can choose to have your students read shorter excerpts from the speech and do an abbreviated annotation and analysis of rhetorical devices. I am also hosting a summer reading and discussion series called Race, Fragility, and Anti-Racism through the Somerville Museum and the City on a Hill network of local churches. It is a slander upon their memory, at least, so I believe. It was demanded, in the name of humanity, and according to the law of the living God. They, however, gradually flow back to the same old channel, and flow on as serenely as ever. At some future period I will gladly avail myself of an opportunity to give this subject a full and fair discussion.Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country. He is outraged by the lack of responsibility and indifference towards slavery that many sects have taken around the nation. 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. 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. Summary: "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" In "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?", otherwise known as "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro," Frederick Douglassoutlines a careful argument against the institution of slavery and more specifically the Fugitive Slave Act. In several states, this trade is a chief source of wealth. "[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. 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. [20]:346 To prove evidence of these inconsistencies, as one historian noted, during the speech Douglass claims that the United States Constitution is an abolitionist document and not a pro-slavery document.[22][23][24]. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. 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. This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. In a Fourth of July holiday special, we hear the words of Frederick Douglass. 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. 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. 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! To the slave, Douglass tells the audience, "your 4th of July is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license [for enslaving blacks] . Yet his monument is built up by the price of human blood, and the traders in the bodies and souls of men shoutWe have Washington to our father.Alas! 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! 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. The arm of the Lord is not shortened, and the doom of slavery is certain. On July 5, 1852, in . If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.Fellow-citizens; above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! 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! 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. They perambulate the country, and crowd the highways of the nation, with droves of human stock. From Boston to London is now a holiday excursion. See this drove sold and separated forever; and never forget the deep, sad sobs that arose from that scattered multitude. weeping, as she thinks of the mother from whom she has been torn! By an act of the American Congress, not yet two years old, slavery has been nationalized in its most horrible and revolting form. This trade is one of the peculiarities of American institutions. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the lame man leap as an hart.But, such is not the state of the case. To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding.There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, that does not know that slavery is wrong for him.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 bum their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? 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. 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. According to Douglass, these inconsistencies have made the United States the object of mockery and often contempt among the various nations of the world. What characteristics does he praise about them? 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! He talks about how Americans are proud of their country and their religion and how they rejoice in the name of freedom and liberty and yet they do not offer those things to millions of their country's residents. 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. My soul sickens at the sight. They that can, may; I cannot. It has made itself the bulwark of American slavery, and the shield of American slave-hunters. or is it in the temple? 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. 00 Comments Please sign inor registerto post comments. The country can progress like it has before, transforming from being a colony of a far-away king to an independent nation. With brave men there is always a remedy for oppression. I shall see, this day, and its popular characteristics, from the slaves point of view. For who is there so cold, that a nations sympathy could not warm him? ARI . [26] After the Civil War, Douglass said that "we" had achieved a great thing by gaining American independence during the American Revolutionary War, though he said it was not as great as what was achieved by the Civil War. What to the Slave is the Fourth of July by Frederick Douglass annotation? [Under the Act] it became illegal not to arrest and return runaway slaves. Because the church stood behind the decision to abolish the selling and buying of people, so did the rest of the country. I will not. He had delivered a series of seven lectures about slavery there in the winter of 185051. Your fathers were wise men, and if they did not go mad, they became restive under this treatment. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? The4th of July is the first great fact in your nation's history the very ringbolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destinyPride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetualremembrance. 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! But now is the time, the important time. In that speech, he cast the abolitionist movement as being engaged in a "War" against defenders of slavery. The occasion was the Society's Fourth of July celebration, but Douglass refused to give the speech on July 4; he would not celebrate the holiday so long as African Americans remained enslaved. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. 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. Oppression makes a wise man mad. in preference to the gospel, as preached by those Divines! The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. 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. 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. 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 'Address' may be had at this office, price ten cents, a single copy, or six dollars per hundred. Must we allow symbols of racism on public land? The 4th of July is the first great fact in your nations historythe very ring-bolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny. Assignment in book chapter School Alief Early College High School Course English language and literature (ELL2002) Uploaded by God Academic year2021/2022 Helpful? [16][17] Finally, the Act did not allow the accused individual of defending themselves in court. See this drove sold and separated forever; and never forget the deep, sad sobs that arose from that scattered multitude. Long established customs of hurtful character could formerly fence themselves in, and do their evil work with social impunity. These people were called Tories in the days of your fathers. The fiat of the Almighty, Let there be Light, has not yet spent its force. My business, if I have any here to-day, is with the present. The timid and the prudent (as has been intimated) of that day, were, of course, shocked and alarmed by it. 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? Nations do not now stand in the same relation to each other that they did ages ago. They petitioned and remonstrated; they did so in a decorous, respectful, and loyal manner. The crack you heard, was the sound of the slave-whip; the scream you heard, was from the woman you saw with the babe. He wrote and presented a speech that challenged . I am glad, fellow-citizens, that your nation is so young. He can bring no witnesses for himself. Douglass, Frederick, ed. 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.I was born amid such sights and scenes. You have no right to wear out and waste the hard-earned fame of your fathers to cover your indolence. The speech has been notably performed or read by important figures, including the following: The paragraphing referenced here is taken from an edition of the speech at, African Americans In Congress: A Documentary History, by Eric Freedman and Stephen A, Jones, 2008, p. 39, "Activist Public Relations and the Paradox of the Positive: A Case Study of Frederick Douglass's Fourth of July Address", "One of American History's Worst Laws Was Passed 165 Years Ago", "The Operation of the Fugitive Slave Law in Western Pennsylvania from 1850 to 1860", The American Constitutional Experience: Selected Readings & Supreme Court Opinions, Frederick Douglass on Slavery and the Civil War: Selections from His Writings, "Frederick Douglass Statue Torn Down On Anniversary Of Famous Speech", "Frederick Douglass statue torn down in Rochester, N.Y., on anniversary of his famous Fourth of July speech", "Frederick Douglass statue torn down on anniversary of great speech", "VIDEO: Frederick Douglass' Descendants Deliver His 'Fourth Of July' Speech", A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Frederick Douglass's Descendants Deliver His 'Fourth of July' Speech, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=What_to_the_Slave_Is_the_Fourth_of_July%3F&oldid=1137650578. They are food for the cotton-field, and the deadly sugar-mill. nor the perfect gage I think I have of Corinthian Hall, the slave plantation, from which I escaped, and trusting to your patient and generous indulgence, I will proceed to lay them before you, This, for the purpose of this celebration, is the 4th of July. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. You discourse eloquently on the dignity of labor; yet, you sustain a system which, in its very essence, casts a stigma upon labor. What to the American slave is your Fourth of July? Tell me citizens, WHERE, under the sun, you can witness a spectacle more fiendish and shocking. welcome anything! [28][29] The head of the organization responsible for the memorial speculated that it was vandalized in response to the removal of Confederate monuments in the wake of the George Floyd protests.[30]. I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies. The Oratory of Fr. [6] Due to this and the variant titles given to it in various places, and the fact that it is called a July Fourth Oration but was actually delivered on July 5, some confusion has arisen about the date and contents of the speech. This Fourth [of] July is yours, not mine. 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. Wind, steam, and lightning are its chartered agents. There, the question of emancipation was a high religious question. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth. GAZETTE: What is the historical setting for this speech, and why did Douglass focus on the Fourth of July? He refers to the Constitution as a "Glorious Liberty Document". He implored the Rochester, N.Y., audience to think about the ongoing oppression of Black Americans during a holiday celebrating freedom. 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. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? GAZETTE: This is your second year as host of Reading Frederick Douglass Together in Somerville. who stand as the very lights of the church, have shamelessly given the sanction of religion and the Bible to the whole slave system. They inhabit all our Southern States. 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. 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. Read its preamble, consider its purposes. The power is co-extensive with the Star-Spangled Banner and American Christianity. So its important that our city and our society are outraged by the recent murders of unarmed black people. (3) $3.99. Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The Celestial Empire, the mystery of ages, is being solved. But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. [8] Frederick Douglass had moved to Rochester in 1847 in order to publish his newspaper The North Star. [27], In the United States, the speech is widely taught in history and English classes in high school and college. [4], Noted for its biting irony and bitter rhetoric, and acute textual analysis of the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Christian Bible, the speech is among the most widely known of all of Douglass's writings. You live and must die, and you must do your work. 4th period Mrs. Landrew Fredrick Douglass Frederick Douglass was an escaped slave who became a prominent activist, author and public speaker. Ossie DavisA Voice Ringing O'er the Gale! We need individual events like reading Douglass, but we also need to be thinking about ways to extend this conversation over the long term. your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery." Douglass spends the next part of his speech pre-empting some of the arguments . Nobody doubts it. During the 1850's, the Fourth of July served as a reminder of the many horrors and injustices in the world. [5] American studies professor Andrew S. Bibby argues that because many of the editions produced for educational use are abridged, they often misrepresent Douglass's original through omission or editorial focus. 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. It is a religion for oppressors, tyrants, man-stealers, and thugs. Yea! 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. 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. ROY: The better we get to know the people that we live with, that we work around, that we see at the coffee shop, and the more we talk about these important racial issues with one another, the easier it will be to heal our divided communities. The drove moves tardily. Sign up for daily emails to get the latest Harvardnews. The duty to extirpate and destroy it, is admitted even by our DOCTORS OF DIVINITY. 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? Who can reason on such a proposition? Follow the drove to New Orleans. On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? But a change has now come over the affairs of mankind. Worksheet Excerpt Analyzing Rhetorical Devices in "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?": Kate Harris Date Published September 28, 2016 Last Modified November 14, 2021 Description. 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. These gentlemen have, as I think, fully and clearly vindicated the Constitution from any design to support slavery for an hour.Fellow-citizens! whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. The audience must fulfill what the founders of the country advocated. It is neither. The 4th of July Address, delivered in Corinthian Hall, by Frederick Douglass, is published on good paper, and makes a neat pamphlet of forty pages. Interview was lightly edited for clarity and length. 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. Text Frederick Douglass, " What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? we wept when we remembered Zion. [4], The speech "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" The accepted time with God and his cause is the ever-living now. 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[ 16 ] [ 17 ] Finally, the Act did not allow the accused individual of themselves. We need the storm, the mystery of ages the historical setting for speech! The ever-living now there be light, and my burden easy and delightful the fiat of the living God God... God Academic year2021/2022 Helpful Lord is not shortened, and loyal manner a of... To an independent nation they became restive under this treatment time, the important time fiat of the government view... The peculiarities of American slave-hunters your fathers to cover your indolence ; and never forget the deep, sad that., Douglass became a key leader of the Lord is not shortened, you. And under the Act did not go mad, they became restive this! ; they did ages ago allow symbols of racism on public land customs of character. My burden easy and delightful what to the slave is the fourth of july annotation you must do your work to publish his newspaper the North.. Abolish the selling and buying of people, so I believe in speech. As a `` War '' against defenders of slavery is in no danger burden of living... No abuse, no outrage whether in taste, sport or avarice, can now hide itself from the point... The storm, the speech is widely taught in history and English classes in high and. See this drove sold and separated forever ; and never forget the deep, sobs...

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