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or is it in the temple? We need the storm. 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 Build with the best speech-to-text APIs around. To do so would be to make myself ridiculous and to offer an insult to your understanding. 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. The Best Speech-to-Text Solution for Your Business Learn how Rev fits into your businesses workflow. I am not included within the pales of this glorious anniversary. Your cause would be much more likely to succeed. It is a fact, that whatever makes for the wealth or for the reputation of Americans, and can be had cheap! Further, if this demand were not complied with, another Scotland would be added to the history of religious liberty, and the stern old Covenanters would be thrown into the shade. To arrest it, to put an end to it, this nation keeps a squadron, at immense cost, on the coast of Africa. 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! This 4th of July is yours, not mine. But neither their familiar faces, nor the perfect gage I think I have of Corinthian Hall, seems to free me from embarrassment. your republican politics, not less than your republican religion, are flagrantly inconsistent. 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. On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass gave a speech at an Independence Day celebration organized by the Rochester Ladies Anti-Slavery Society. There were then no means of concert and combination, such as exist now. WebFrederick Douglass speech What to a Slave is the Fourth of July effectively argues against slavery. Would you persuade more and rebuke less? Suicide Note Revealed After Shocking Death, Mississippi Cops Beat, Waterboarded Handcuffed Black Men, Shot 1 For Dating White Women': Lawyers, Indicted! Is a matter, the set with great difficulty involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard to understand? The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. 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. To him, your celebration is a sham, your boasted Liberty, an unholy license, your national greatness, swelling vanity. You live and must die, and you must do your work. You may well cherish the memory of such men. That, which is inhuman cannot be divine. How circumspect, exact and proportionate were all their movements! 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 inhabit all our Southern States. They were great men too great enough to give fame to a great age. Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has welcome atheism! 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. Senator Berrien tell us that the Constitution is the fundamental law, that which controls all others. will be found by Americans. It is not the gentle shower, but thunder. But, to proceed. The anti-slavery movementtherewas 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 of a hostile position towards that movement. There is hope in the thought, and hope is much needed, under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon. Your lawmakers have commanded all good citizens to engage in this hellish sport. My subject then, fellow citizens, is American slavery. Transcripts & captions for a better media workflow. In the summer of 2020, the U.S. commemorated Independence Day amid nationwide But now is the time, the important time. I take it, therefore, that it is not presumption in a private citizen to form an opinion of that instrument. 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. For black men there are neither law, justice, humanity, not religion. But a change has now come over the affairs of mankind. WebA speech celebrating both Lincoln and African Americans freedom wrought by Lincoln. It was a startling idea, much more so, than we, at this distance of time, regard it. But I admit, where all is plain, there is nothing to be argued. Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice embodied in that Declaration of Independence extended to us? I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the ring-bolt to the chain of your nations destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. 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. In a final celebratory post for Black History Month 2023, it is worth returning to the 1883 Douglass Banquet. 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! 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. Morel is right that the 1876 speech by Frederick Douglass is remarkable and masterful. Frederick Douglass: (00:26) It is the antagonistic force in your government, the only thing that seriously disturbs and endangers yourUnion. O! 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. Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? WebIn the late 1860sat a moment of great hope for the promise of equality under the lawthe famed orator and once-enslaved abolitionist Frederick Douglass took his Our Composite Nation speech on the road to argue for a plural American democracy. Mark the sad procession, as it moves wearily along, and the inhuman wretch who drives them. 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. 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! Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience nor grace my speech with any high sounding exordium. 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 Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? 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. Nobody doubts it. Frederick Douglass: (02:13) Frederick Douglass: (07:35) That point is conceded already. I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people! 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. The country was poor in the munitions of war. Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood and stained with pollution is wrong? These ministers make religion a cold and flinty-hearted thing, having neither principles of right action, nor bowels of compassion. Your fathers were wise men, and if they did not go mad, they became restive under this treatment. 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. 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! Easily integrate Rev using our robust APIs to start building your product quickly. Try Rev and save time transcribing, captioning, and subtitling. 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, . 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. To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding. Thoughts expressed on one side of the Atlantic, are distinctly heard on the other. There was, at that time, a grand slave mart kept at the head of Pratt Street, by Austin Woldfolk. 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. Born to an enslaved family in 1818, Frederick Douglass never knew his actual birthday, a fact not uncommon for those enslaved. Industry-leading accurate legal transcription to ensure you dont miss a statement. Like our content? speaking of it relatively, and positively, negatively, and affirmatively. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The document is in the form of a Google Docs so it has a translation tool, dictionary, and voice to text. America is false to the past, false to the present and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Then would my task be light and my burden easy and delightful? Fully appreciating the hardship to be encountered, firmly believing in the right of their cause, honorably inviting the scrutiny of an on-looking world, reverently appealing to heaven to attest their sincerity, soundly comprehending the solemn responsibility they were about to assume, wisely measuring the terrible odds against them, your fathers, the fathers of this republic, did, most deliberately, under the inspiration of a glorious patriotism, and with a sublime faith in the great principles of justice and freedom, lay deep the corner-stone of the national superstructure, which has risen and still rises in grandeur around you. This is the inevitable conclusion, and from it there is no escape. 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 fancy, I hear some of my audience say it is just in this circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression upon the public mind. Descendants of Frederick Douglass read excerpts from one of his most famous speeches: What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? Now, take the Constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? Tell me citizens, WHERE, under the sun, you can witness a spectacle more fiendish and shocking. Their statesmanship looked beyond the passing moment, and stretched away in strength into the distant future. Nations do not now stand in the same relation to each other that they did ages ago. Standing here identified with the American bondsmen, making his wrongs mine. Fellow-citizens! who stand as the very lights of the church, have shamelessly given the sanction of religion and the Bible to the whole slave system. we wept when we remembered Zion. While drawing encouragement from the Declaration of Independence, the great principles it contains, and the genius of American Institutions, my spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age. Your broad republican domain is hunting ground formen. 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. Were the nation older, the patriots heart might be sadder, and the reformers brow heavier. Is it at the gateway? Frederick Douglass, circa 1879. Difference between Rittenhouse and McMichael-Bryan verdicts? Frederick Douglass delivered his famous speech What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? in 1852, drawing parallels between the Revolutionary War and the fight to abolish slavery. The subject has been handled with masterly power by Lysander Spooner, Esq., by William Goodell, by Samuel E. Sewall, Esq., and last, though not least, by Gerritt Smith, Esq. The hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed and its crimes against God and man must be denounced. I shall see, this day, and its popular characteristics, from the slaves point of view. We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future. 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. Web" 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 I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. President John F. Kennedy On July 4, 1962 President John F. Kennedy delivered this speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He rose from the shackles of slavery to become an author, In the solitude of my spirit, I see clouds of dust raised on the highways of the South; I see the bleeding footsteps; I hear the doleful wail of fettered humanity, on the way to the slave markets, where the victims are to be sold like horses, sheep, and swine, knocked off to the highest bidder. Would you argue more, and denounce less, would you persuade more, and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed. 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? No, I will not. 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. Full transcript of the famous speech What to the Slave is the 4th of July? by Frederick Douglass. 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. 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. Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation? when ye make many prayers, I will not hear. Ex-Senator Benton tells us that the price of men was never higher than now. 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. This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. A RESTful API to access Revs workforce of fast, high quality transcriptionists and captioners. Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who The slaveholders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. Extend your content reach and maximize your engagement rates. 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. During There are illustrations of it near and remote, ancient and modern. Frederick Douglass: (01:08) What was possible for him, he sincerely believed was possible for any man who was willing to work hard. Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? This, however, did not answer the purpose. The anguish of my boyish heart was intense; and I was often consoled, when speaking to my mistress in the morning, to hear her say that the custom was very wicked; that she hated to hear the rattle of the chains, and the heart-rending cries. 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. Her speed had faltered under the weight of her child and her chains! I have better employments for my time and strength than such arguments would imply. As noted here, that banquet was attended by prominent I will show you a man-drover. The task before me is one which requires much previous thought and study for its proper performance. Even Mammon seems to have quitted his grasp on this day. 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. Fellow-citizens; above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? I will not equivocate. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. 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 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? WebThe Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro by Frederick Douglass. 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. For it is not light that is needed, but fire. He further says, the Constitution, in its words, is plain and intelligible, and is meant for the home-bred, unsophisticated understandings of our fellow-citizens. There is not a nation of the earth, guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody than are the people of these United States at this very hour. 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. They who did so were accounted in their day, plotters of mischief, agitators and rebels, dangerous men. This Fourth [of] July isyours, notmine. The population of the country, at the time, stood at the insignificant number of three millions.