frederick douglass speech transcript frederick douglass speech transcript

He mentions the fact to show that slavery is in no danger. I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people! 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? Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth. Yea! 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. 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. But now is the time, the important time. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced. I will not equivocate. Is slavery among them? 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! Douglass gave this speech to a group of abolitionists 168 years ago. Yet they persevered. Even Mammon seems to have quitted his grasp on this day. WebFrederick Douglass, July 5, 1852 INTRODUCTION (Exordium) 1. WebBoth anniversaries remind us that the fight for independence and equality did not end in the 18th century - a theme highlighted in Douglass speech. The flesh-mongers gather up their victims by dozens, and drive them, chained, to the general depot at Baltimore. "What to the Slave is the 4th of July?" When a child, my soul was often pierced with a sense of its horrors. Frederick Douglass: (00:26) VIDEO: Frederick Douglass' descendants deliver his 'Fourth of July' speech. They felt themselves the victims of grievous wrongs, wholly incurable in their colonial capacity. They are a trouble to me; I am weary to bear them; and when ye spread forth your hands I will hide mine eyes from you. Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) was a social reformer and advocate, abolitionist, orator, writer, minister, and statesman. The population of the country, at the time, stood at the insignificant number of three millions. And the conscience of the nation must be roused. Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, iswrong? your republican politics, not less than your republican religion, are flagrantly inconsistent. Speech-to-Text live streaming for live captions, powered by the worlds leading speech recognition API. Thoughts expressed on one side of the Atlantic, are distinctly heard on the other. Under Title 17 U.S.C. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. Prayers are made, hymns are sung, and sermons are preached in honor of this day; while the quick martial tramp of a great and multitudinous nation, echoed back by all the hills, valleys and mountains of a vast continent, bespeak the occasion one of thrilling and universal interest a nations jubilee. That trade has long since been denounced by this government, as piracy. Nobody doubts it. The time for such argument is passed. 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 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. The population was weak and scattered, and the country a wilderness unsubdued. See, too, that girl of thirteen, weeping, yes! I know that apologies of this sort are generally considered flat and unmeaning. 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. 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 iron shoe, and crippled foot of China must be seen, in contrast with nature. For it is not light that is needed, but fire. 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. There is hope in the thought, and hope is much needed, under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon. There are illustrations of it near and remote, ancient and modern. 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. I think that, in whatever else I may be deficient, I have 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. See this drove sold and separated forever; and never forget the deep, sad sobs that arose from that scattered multitude. Your cause would be much more likely to succeed. Racist Ex-University Of Kentucky 'Karen' Sophia Rosing Is Charged For Assaulting Black Student. Fair use is permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. You were under the British Crown. When Douglass delivered his famous 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 reminded readers. be warned! WebAn excerpt from the 1847 Frederick Douglass speech given for the anniversary of the American Anti-Slavery Society. 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. 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. 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. Tell me citizens, WHERE, under the sun, you can witness a spectacle more fiendish and shocking. The manhood of the slave is conceded. There is not time now to argue the constitutional question at length nor have I the ability to discuss it as it ought to be discussed. WebDescription. 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? But, while the river may not be turned aside, it may dry up, and leave nothing behind but the withered branch, and the unsightly rock, to howl in the abyss-sweeping wind, the sad tale of departed glory. Of this sort of change they are always strongly in favor. Born to an enslaved family in 1818, Frederick Douglass never knew his actual birthday, a fact not uncommon for those enslaved. I am not that man. 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. Where these go, may also go the merciless slave-hunter. Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe. This is esteemed by some as a national trait perhaps a national weakness. Try Rev and save time transcribing, captioning, and subtitling. Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery. The coming into being of a nation, in any circumstances, is an interesting event. We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future. I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slaves point of view. Without this right, the liberty of an American citizen would be as insecure as that of a Frenchman. What was possible for him, he sincerely believed was possible for any man who was willing to work hard. Full transcript of the famous speech What to the Slave is the 4th of July? by Frederick Douglass. My soul sickens at the sight. To do so would be to make myself ridiculous and to offer an insult to your understanding. 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. How can we sing the Lords song in a strange land? WebA speech celebrating both Lincoln and African Americans freedom wrought by Lincoln. At a time like this, scorching irony not convincing argument is needed. Your fathers were wise men, and if they did not go mad, they became restive under this treatment. The slaveholders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. Albert Barnes but uttered what the common sense of every man at all observant of the actual state of the case will receive as truth, when he declared that There is no power out of the church that could sustain slavery an hour, if it were not sustained in it.. 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. In their admiration of liberty, they lost sight of all other interests. This is the inevitable conclusion, and from it there is no escape. I will use the severest language I can command. I must mourn. 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. You discourse eloquently on the dignity of labor; yet, you sustain a system which, in its very essence, casts a stigma upon labor. Mark the sad procession, as it moves wearily along, and the inhuman wretch who drives them. No nation can now shut itself up from the surrounding world, and trot round in the same old path of its fathers without interference. Some of these have had wives and children, dependent on them for bread; but of this, no account was made. O! 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! There is blasphemy in the thought. That which is inhuman, cannot be divine! And instead of being the honest men I have before declared them to be, they were the veriest imposters that ever practiced on mankind. here lies the merit, and the one which, of all others, seems unfashionable in our day. Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice embodied in that Declaration of Independence extended to us? 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? Walled cities and empires have become unfashionable. Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to those questions. 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.