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. What then remains to be argued? I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies. Read the full text below of the sage words from one of the greatest orators of all time. No, I will not. Fellow citizens, this murderous traffic is, today, in active operation in this boasted republic. They who did so were accounted in their day, plotters of mischief, agitators and rebels, dangerous men. There, see the old man, with locks thinned and gray. Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has He is a bird for the sportsmans gun. The Lords of Buffalo, the Springs of New York, the Lathrops of Auburn, the Coxes and Spencers of Brooklyn, the Gannets and Sharps of Boston, the Deweys of Washington, and other great religious lights of the land have, in utter denial of the authority ofHimby whom they professed to be called to the ministry, deliberately taught us, against the example or the Hebrews and against the remonstrance of the Apostles, they teachthat we ought to obey mans law before the law of God. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? 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. But I admit, where all is plain, there is nothing to be argued. Ex-Senator Benton tells us that the price of men was never higher than now. Make your content more accessible to people with disabilities. No! The blessings in which you this day rejoice are not enjoyed in common. The feeling of the nation must be quickened. You invite to your shores fugitives of oppression from abroad, honor them with banquets, greet them with ovations, cheer them, toast them, salute them, protect them, and pour out your money to them like water; but the fugitives from your own land you advertise, hunt, arrest, shoot and kill. To say now that America was right, and England wrong, is exceedingly easy. That bolt drawn, that chain broken, and all is lost. 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. Our Composite Nation: Frederick Douglass America But a still more inhuman, disgraceful, and scandalous state of things remains to be presented. Behold the practical operation of this internal slave-trade, the American slave-trade, sustained by American politics and America religion. Is it at the gateway? For 186 years this doctrine of national independence has shaken the globeand it remains the most powerful force anywhere in the world today. 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. For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. They were quiet men; but they did not shrink from agitating against oppression. If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. I have better employment for my time and strength than such arguments would imply. Frederick Douglass thought that such rationalizations were crap, and he had the right to think so. They were great men too great enough to give fame to a great age. The manhood of the slave is conceded. 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. And instead of being the honest men I have before declared them to be, they were the veriest imposters that ever practiced on mankind. Great streams are not easily turned from channels, worn deep in the course of ages. Not fewer than forty Americans have, within the past two years, been hunted down and, without a moments warning, hurried away in chains, and consigned to slavery and excruciating torture. These people were called Tories in the days of your fathers; and the appellation, probably, conveyed the same idea that is meant by a more modern, though a somewhat less euphonious term, which we often find in our papers, applied to some of our old politicians. But neither their familiar faces, nor the perfect gage I think I have of Corinthian Hall, seems to free me from embarrassment. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. Discover why Rev is the #1 speech-to-text service in the world. 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? This is a primary source reading analysis of Frederick Douglass' famous speech. Oh! WebA speech celebrating both Lincoln and African Americans freedom wrought by Lincoln. Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. 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. 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.. 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. There is blasphemy in the thought. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible being? Juneteenth Reading List: 10 Books To Learn More About Black Independence Day, Your email will be shared with newsone.com and subject to its, The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro address before an audience, at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York, on July 5, 1852, he was issuing , a scathing indictment of American hypocrisy, Washington Post columnist Courtland Milloy, . Without this right, the liberty of an American citizen would be as insecure as that of a Frenchman. 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. WebFrederick Douglass, July 5, 1852 INTRODUCTION (Exordium) 1. And am I therefore called upon to bring our humble offering to the national alter and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us? Extend your content reach and maximize your engagement rates. It is a religion for oppressors, tyrants, man-stealers, andthugs. 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. Frederick Douglass speech - PBS Fair use is permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? 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 There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, who does not know that slavery is wrong for him. Should I seem at ease, my appearance would much misrepresent me. whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. 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! Sydney Smith tells us that men seldom eulogize the wisdom and virtues of their fathers, but to excuse some folly or wickedness of their own. 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. The propriety of the nation must be startled. I say it with a sad sense of disparity between us. In several states, this trade is a chief source of wealth. 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. Americans! A RESTful API to access Revs workforce of fast, high quality transcriptionists and captioners. My business, if I have any here today, is with the present. Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) was a social reformer and advocate, abolitionist, orator, writer, minister, and statesman. Frederick Douglass: (09:38) What to the Slave is the 4th of July? Speech Transcript by Frederick Douglass, Congressional Testimony & Hearing Transcripts. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. 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! Neither steam nor lightning had then been reduced to order and discipline. Need I remind you that a similar thing is being done all over this country to-day? The crack you heard, was the sound of the slave-whip; the scream you heard, was from the woman you saw with the babe. 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. 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 in sacrilegious irony. Frederick Douglass: (04:09) Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation? There was, at that time, a grand slave mart kept at the head of Pratt Street, by Austin Woldfolk. Convert your audio or video into 99% accurate text by a professional. who stand as the very lights of the church, have shamelessly given the sanction of religion and the Bible to the whole slave system. It is the antagonistic force in your government, the only thing that seriously disturbs and endangers yourUnion. This 4th of July is yours, not mine. Youmay rejoice,Imust mourn. 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. He mentions the fact to show that slavery is in no danger. You have already declared it. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak. 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 In a final celebratory post for Black History Month 2023, it is worth returning to the 1883 Douglass Banquet. when ye make many prayers, I will not hear. This is esteemed by some as a national trait perhaps a national weakness. But, such is not the state of the case. Its deeply moving to hear Douglass defend the honor of Black soldiers in his 1863 speech, The Proclamation And a Negro Army, read by Colman Domingo, while his final speech, 1894s Lessons of the Hour, lays out the crucial steps toward achieving equality that have yet to be followed today.The actor selected to read these words is The most accurate AI-powered transcription on the market. 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? 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. But a change has now come over the affairs of mankind. 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. For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. Though a biting be warned! By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. Community Reading: Frederick Douglass's "What WebFrederick Douglass, Fifth of July speech (1852) O! With them, justice, liberty and humanity were final; not slavery and oppression. For who is there so cold, that a nations sympathy could not warm him? 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. There are illustrations of it near and remote, ancient and modern. Frederick Douglass: (02:13) Their opposition to the then dangerous thought was earnest and powerful; but, amid all their terror and affrighted vociferations against it, the alarming and revolutionary idea moved on, and the country with it. 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? The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. A Plea for Free Speech in Boston (1860) | Constitution Center The document is in the form of a Google Docs so it has a translation tool, dictionary, and voice to text. Feeling themselves harshly and unjustly treated by the home government, your fathers, like men of honesty, and men of spirit, earnestly sought redress. You have no right to enjoy a childs share in the labor of your fathers, unless your children are to be blest by your labors. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. I cannot. One of the parts of the speech that resonates with me the most is when Douglass says: What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? Go search where you will. The minister of American justice is bound by the law to hear butoneside; andthatside, is the side of the oppressor. 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! You may rejoice, I must mourn.. Let it be thundered around the world, that, in tyrant-killing, king-hating, people-loving, democratic, Christian America, the seats of justice are filled with judges, who hold their offices under an open and palpablebribe, and are bound, in deciding in the case of a mans liberty,hear only his accusers! 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. The papers and placards say, that I am to deliver a 4th [of] July oration. 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. WebOn July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass gave a keynote address at an Independence Day celebration and asked, What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? Douglass was a powerful But I differ from those who charge this baseness on the framers of the Constitution of the United States. that gash on her shoulder tells her to move on. 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. here lies the merit, and the one which, of all others, seems unfashionable in our day. Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetual remembrance. The message of Frederick Douglasss 1852 speech on the contradiction of Americas just ideals and unjust realities endures. Oration by Frederick Douglass, delivered on the occasion of the I will not. It has made itself the bulwark of American slavery, and the shield of American slave-hunters. 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. My soul sickens at the sight. It esteems sacrifice above mercy; psalm-singing above right doing; solemn meetings above practical righteousness. 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. Citizens, your fathers made good that resolution. The simple story of it is that, 76 years ago, the people of this country were British subjects. Copyright 2023 Interactive One, LLC. 1883 Speech by Frederick Douglass - accessible-archives.com Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, iswrong? 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. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the lame man leap as an hart.. At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. Just here, the idea of a total separation of the colonies from the crown was born! Even Mammon seems to have quitted his grasp on this day. Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to those questions. Your cause would be much more likely to succeed. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth. You were under the British Crown. The accepted time with God and his cause is the ever-living now. 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. 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. I will show you a man-drover. Under these, and innumerable other disadvantages, your fathers declared for liberty and independence and triumphed. Speech-to-Text API for pre-recorded audio, powered by the worlds leading speech recognition engine. Would you argue more and denounce less? Would you persuade more and rebuke less? Is it that slavery is not divine, that God did not establish it, that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? The ear-piercing fife and the stirring drum unite their accents with the ascending peal of a thousand church bells. He who will, intelligently, lay down his life for his country, is a man whom it is not in human nature to despise. As with rivers so with nations. Oh, had I, the ability, and could I reach the nations ear, I would today pour out a fiery steam of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For black men there are neither law, justice, humanity, not religion. 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? See, too, that girl of thirteen, weeping, yes! There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, that does not know that slavery is wrong for him. The slaveholders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible being? His own testimony is nothing. 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; 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. In the summer of 2020, the U.S. commemorated Independence Day amid nationwide Need I tell you that the Jews are not the only people who built the tombs of the prophets, and garnished the sepulchres of the righteous?