We thank you for taking the time to watch this community reading of Frederick Douglasss What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? Source: Blight, David. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.. 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. The crack you heard, was the sound of the slave-whip; the scream you heard, was from the woman you saw with the babe. Descendants of Frederick Douglass read excerpts from one of his most famous speeches: What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? My business, if I have any here today, is with the present. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak. 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. Ex-Senator Benton tells us that the price of men was never higher than now. 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. President John F. Kennedy On July 4, 1962 President John F. Kennedy delivered this speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. But, to proceed. Oh! Of this fundamental work, this day is the anniversary. WebAn excerpt from the 1847 Frederick Douglass speech given for the anniversary of the American Anti-Slavery Society.
Speech They loved their country better than their own private interests; and, though this is not the highest form of human excellence, all will concede that it is a rare virtue, and that when it is exhibited, it ought to command respect. The oath of any two villains is sufficient, under this hell-black enactment, to send the most pious and exemplary black man into the remorseless jaws of slavery! 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. That I am here to-day is, to me, a matter of astonishment as well as of gratitude. May of Syracuse, and my esteemed friend (Rev. Under these, and innumerable other disadvantages, your fathers declared for liberty and independence and triumphed. The coming into being of a nation, in any circumstances, is an interesting event. I was born amid such sights and scenes.
Our Composite Nation: Frederick Douglass America What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Easily integrate Rev using our robust APIs to start building your product quickly. 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.
What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? - Wikipedia Our eyes are met with demonstrations of joyous enthusiasm. Friends and citizens, I need not enter further into the causes which led to this anniversary.
What, to the American Slave, Is Your 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! Morel is right that the 1876 speech by Frederick Douglass is remarkable and masterful. 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. 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. The manhood of the slave is conceded. You may rejoice. 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. whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. The slave holders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. 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. They were statesmen, patriots and heroes, and for the good they did, and the principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory. 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. What? Under Title 17 U.S.C. had I the ability, and could I reach the nations ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. It is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom.
Speech 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! They saw themselves treated with sovereign indifference, coldness and scorn. It was fashionable, hundreds of years ago, for the children of Jacob to boast, we have Abraham to our father, when they had long lost Abrahams faith and spirit. Try Rev and save time transcribing, captioning, and subtitling. Of this sort of change they are always strongly in favor. I have better employment for my time and strength than such arguments would imply. 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. 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? They inhabit all our Southern States. They believed in order; but not in the order of tyranny. I must mourn. The Fugitive SlaveLawmakes mercy to them a crime; and bribes the judge who tries them. Build with the best speech-to-text APIs around. With little experience and with less learning, I have been able to throw my thoughts hastily and imperfectly together; and trusting to your patient and generous indulgence, I will proceed to lay them before you. But I admit, where all is plain, there is nothing to be argued. Would you persuade more and rebuke less? Their solid manhood stands out the more as we contrast it with these degenerate times. His own testimony is nothing. Wind, steam, and lightning are its chartered agents. 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? In the summer of 2020, the U.S. commemorated Independence Day amid nationwide here lies the merit, and the one which, of all others, seems unfashionable in our day. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? These wretched people are to be sold singly, or in lots, to suit purchasers. According to this fact, you are, even now, only in the beginning of your national career, still lingering in the period of childhood. He rose from the shackles of slavery to become an author, newspaper publisher, and respected abolitionist. 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. The Sharps, the Clarksons, the Wilberforces, the Buxtons, and Burchells and the Knibbs, were alike famous for their piety, and for their philanthropy. The madness of this course, we believe, is admitted now, even by England; but we fear the lesson is wholly lost on our present ruler. In their admiration of liberty, they lost sight of all other interests. 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. Suicide Note Revealed After Shocking Death, Mississippi Cops Beat, Waterboarded Handcuffed Black Men, Shot 1 For Dating White Women': Lawyers, Indicted! Frederick Douglass Read the full transcript here. I shall see, this day, and its popular characteristics, from the slaves point of view. Did this law concern the mint, anise, and cumin abridge the right to sing psalms, to partake of the sacrament, or to engage in any of the ceremonies of religion, it would be smitten by the thunder of a thousand pulpits. I scout the idea that the question of the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of slavery is not a question for the people. The iron shoe, and crippled foot of China must be seen, in contrast with nature. How can we sing the Lords song in a strange land? 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. And the lame man leap as an heart, but such is not the case. It has been denounced with burning words, from the high places of the nation, as an execrable traffic. How unlike the politicians of an hour! They form the staple of your national poetry and eloquence. Convert your audio or video into 99% accurate text by a professional. 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. 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? 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. The manhood of the slave is conceded. 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 Frederick Douglass: (06:03) You declare, before the world, and are understood by the world to declare, that you hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal; and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; and that, among these are, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and yet, you hold securely, in a bondage which, according to your own Thomas Jefferson, is worse than ages of that which your fathers rose in rebellion to oppose, aseventh partof the inhabitants of your country. Feeling themselves harshly and unjustly treated by the home government, your fathers, like men of honesty, and men of spirit, earnestly sought redress. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? You shed tears over fallen Hungary, and make the sad story of her wrongs the theme of your poets, statesmen and orators, till your gallant sons are ready to fly to arms to vindicate her cause against her oppressors; but, in regard to the ten thousand wrongs of the American slave, you would enforce the strictest silence, and would hail him as an enemy of the nation who dares to make those wrongs the subject of public discourse! An American judge gets ten dollars for every victim he consigns to slavery, and five, when he fails to do so. But, such is not the state of the case. WebCelebrating 200 years of Frederick Douglass. 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. There, see the old man, with locks thinned and gray. The existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretence, and your Christianity as a lie. Become a freelancer and work on your own terms. Let the religious press, the pulpit, the Sunday school, the conference meeting, the great ecclesiastical, missionary, Bible and tract associations of the land array their immense powers against slavery and slave-holding; and the whole system of crime and blood would be scattered to the winds; and that they do not do this involves them in the most awful responsibility of which the mind can conceive. 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. 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. 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.
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