In his speech, "The Hypocrisy of American Slavery . [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. Now, there are certain rules of interpretation, for the proper understanding of all legal instruments. 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. Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to. Great for your high school American Literature class. But the 1852 "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" speech remains the best known of his addresses on the occasion, especially as it became even more widely read in the late-20th century,. This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. 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 hypocrisya thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. Knowledge was then confined and enjoyed by the privileged few, and the multitude walked on in mental darkness. (3) $3.99. Douglass denounces the churches for betraying their own biblical and Christian values. After this, he turns his attention to the church. Three score years and ten is the allotted time for individual men; but nations number their years by thousands. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour. That trade has long since been denounced by this government, as piracy. ROY: Douglass wrote the speech in the wake of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which effectively extended the reach of slave power in the South throughout the rest of the country. official permission or approval. Africa must rise and put on her yet unwoven garment. [16][17] Finally, the Act did not allow the accused individual of defending themselves in court. You may rejoice, I must mourn. Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? 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. The accepted time with God and his cause is the ever-living now. The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong city. Douglass then pivots to the present, stating that "We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future". The fiat of the Almighty, Let there be Light, has not yet spent its force. It is the antagonistic force in your government, the only thing that seriously disturbs and endangers your Union. 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. A general shout would go up from the church, demanding repeal, repeal, instant repeal!And it would go hard with that politician who presumed to solicit the votes of the people without inscribing this motto on his banner. "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? 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 is a bird for the sportsmans gun. [16] Additionally, it awarded $10 to a judge who sentenced an individual to return to enslavement, while awarding only $5 if the claim was dismissed. Douglass vividly describes the conditions under which those enslaved are bought and sold; he says that they are treated as no more than animals. Frederick Douglass delivered his famous speech at the Corinthian Hall in Rochester, NY, on July. 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.But I fancy I hear some one of my audience say, it is just in this circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind. Would you argue more, and denounce less, would you persuade more, and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed. dismay. 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. 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. What will this years event be like? 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 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! This trade is one of the peculiarities of American institutions. The founding fathers left black people and women out of these rights for "everyone." We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future. Your fathers esteemed the English Government as the home government; and England as the fatherland. He says that, if anything, many churches actually stand behind slavery and support the continued existence of the institution. 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! He argues that the Constitution does not permit slavery, contrary to the claims of contemporary defenders of the institution. The Fugitive Slave Law makes mercy to them a crime; and bribes the judge who tries them. I repeat, I am glad this is so. On July 5, 1852, in . Your fathers were wise men, and if they did not go mad, they became restive under this treatment. They that can, may; I cannot. your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery." Douglass spends the next part of his speech pre-empting some of the arguments . There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.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.Take the American slave-trade, which, we are told by the papers, is especially prosperous just now. But, with that blindness which seems to be the unvarying characteristic of tyrants, since Pharaoh and his hosts were drowned in the Red Sea. 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. 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. 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! The little experience I have had in addressing public meetings, in country schoolhouses, avails me nothing on the present occasion. [10] Douglass had spoken at Corinthian Hall in the past. On 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 orator, often traveling six months out of the year to give lectures on abolition. be warned! In several states, this trade is a chief source of wealth. 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. The 'Address' may be had at this office, price ten cents, a single copy, or six dollars per hundred. More than 150 years later, Keidrick Roy, a doctoral student in American Studies at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and a U.S. Air Force veteran, will host a virtual community reading and discussion of the storied speech at the Somerville Museum on Thursday as part of the annual state-wide MassHumanities program Reading Frederick Douglass Together.. Worksheet Excerpt Analyzing Rhetorical Devices in "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?": As with rivers so with nations. Douglass then returns to the topic of the founding of the United States. Panel on dispossession of African Americans says burying truth keeps Black Americans dispossessed, Legal scholar and historian puts the push to remove Confederate statues in context, Members of the community share memories, plans, hopes for the holiday, Quantum computing simulation reveals possible wormhole-like dynamics. There is hope in the thought, and hope is much needed, under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon. However, if slavery were abolished and equal rights given to all, that would no longer be the case. He can bring no witnesses for himself. was delivered in the decade preceding the American Civil War, which lasted from 1861 to 1865 and achieved the abolition of slavery. Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, is wrong? Frederick Douglass, a well-known Black writer, orator, and abolitionist was asked to address an anti-slavery group on the July 4 holiday in 1852. GAZETTE: What is the historical setting for this speech, and why did Douglass focus on the Fourth of July? Without this fight, the liberty of an American citizen would be as insecure as that of a Frenchman. GAZETTE: Why is it important to do this kind of community-building work at a local level? There are seventy-two 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 the same crimes will subject a white man to the like punishment. Assignment in book chapter School Alief Early College High School Course English language and literature (ELL2002) Uploaded by God Academic year2021/2022 Helpful? And it also imposed severe penalties on anyone who helped enslaved people to escape. He was fortunate to have been taught to read by his slave owner mistress, and he would go on to become one of the major literary figures of his time. 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. Is slavery among them? Heat and sorrow have nearly consumed their strength; suddenly you hear a quick snap, like the discharge of a rifle; the fetters clank, and the chain rattles simultaneously; your ears are saluted with a scream, that seems to have torn its way to the center of your soul! There I see the tenderest ties ruthlessly broken, to gratify the lust, caprice and rapacity of the buyers and sellers of men. He took action to raise the voices of others and to aid their work on the national stage, especially that of two Black women in the last half of the 19th century. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. Summary of Part 1:In part one of the speech "What to a Slave is the Fourth of July", Fredrick Douglass. When the dogs in your streets, when the fowls of the air, when the cattle on your hills, when the fish of the sea, and the reptiles that crawl, shall be unable to distinguish the slave from a brute, then will I argue with you that the slave is a man!For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. we wept when we remembered Zion. 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. Tell me citizens, WHERE, under the sun, you can witness a spectacle more fiendish and shocking. 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. They, however, gradually flow back to the same old channel, and flow on as serenely as ever. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. 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?. Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. [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. 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. Not for thieves and robbers, enemies of society, merely, but for men guilty of no crime. This page was last edited on 5 February 2023, at 19:31. The minister of American justice is bound by the law to hear but one side; and that side, is the side of the oppressor. He became a leader in the abolitionist movement, which sought to end the practice of slavery, before and during the Civil War. Douglass' speech came just 11 years before Lincolns Emancipation Proclamation hitting a poignant point in American history through his targeting of the slave as a crucial figure in desperate need of independence. 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. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. During the 1850's, the Fourth of July served as a reminder of the many horrors and injustices in the world. You have no right to wear out and waste the hard-earned fame of your fathers to cover your indolence. I was glad to find one who sympathized with me in my horror.Fellow-citizens, this murderous traffic is, to-day, in active operation in this boasted republic. See this drove sold and separated forever; and never forget the deep, sad sobs that arose from that scattered multitude. He implored the Rochester, N.Y., audience to think about the ongoing oppression of Black Americans during a holiday celebrating . 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. 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. Table of Contents. 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. It is a slander upon their memory, at least, so I believe. The evil that men do, lives after them, The good is oft-interred with their bones. Another remarkable thing about Douglass is that he was an early champion of voting rights for women. What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? An American judge gets ten dollars for every victim he con signs to slavery, and five, when he fails to do so. The audience must fulfill what the founders of the country advocated. Stauffer, John. A worship that can be conducted by persons who refuse to give shelter to the houseless, to give bread to the hungry, clothing to the naked, and who enjoin obedience to a law forbidding these acts of mercy, is a curse, not a blessing to mankind. I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies. [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]. That which is inhuman, cannot be divine! They strip the love of God of its beauty, and leave the throng of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form. Douglass details the hardships past Americans once endured when they were members of British colonies and validates their feelings of ill treatment. "Meaning of the Fourth of July to a Negro" by Bridget Durham The Fourth of July is a day of celebration for many Americans because on July 4th, 1776, America declared independence from Britain and said that everyone was free under the US government, right? 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! Genius is the ultimate source of music knowledge, created by scholars like you who share facts and insight about the songs and artists they love. The manhood of the slave is conceded. Many of its most eloquent Divines. You discourse eloquently on the dignity of labor; yet, you sustain a system which, in its very essence, casts a stigma upon labor. GAZETTE: This is your second year as host of Reading Frederick Douglass Together in Somerville. The Oratory of Fr. Ethiopia shall stretch out her hand unto God. In the fervent aspirations of William Lloyd Garrison, I say, and let every heart join in saying it: Frederick Douglass delivered his famous speech at the Corinthian Hall in Rochester, NY, on July 5th, 1852. Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? Knowledge is becoming more readily available, Douglass said, and soon the American people will open their eyes to the atrocities they have been inflicting on their fellow Americans. Noble men may be found, scattered all over these Northern States, of whom Henry Ward Beecher of Brooklyn, Samuel J. 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. This act forced citizens to report people who had escaped their enslavement and escaped to a free state, under punishment of a fine or imprisonment. These men were generally well dressed men, and very captivating in their manners. Where these go, may also go the merciless slave-hunter. The speech 'What to the Slaves is the Fourth of July' projected the American Day of Independence from a slave's point of view and brought to light the horrific experiences of slavery. 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. Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. Oceans no longer divide, but link nations together. That bolt drawn, that chain broken, and all is lost. Rhetorical Analysis Of Harvey Fourth Of July. 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.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.In prosecuting the anti-slavery enterprise, we have been asked to spare the church, to spare the ministry; but how, we ask, could such a thing be done? This year is pretty challenging in the wake of COVID-19, and the event is going to be held online instead of before a live audience like we did last year. Essentially, Douglass criticizes his audience's pride for a nation that claims to value freedom though it is composed of people who continuously commit atrocities against Blacks. Douglass also stresses the view that slaves and free Americans are equal in nature. 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 of Him by whom the professed to he called to the ministry, deliberately taught us, against the example or the Hebrews and against the remonstrance of the Apostles, they teach that we ought to obey mans law before the law of God.My spirit wearies of such blasphemy; and how such men can be supported, as the standing types and representatives of Jesus Christ, is a mystery which I leave others to penetrate. You are all on fire at the mention of liberty for France or for Ireland; but are as cold as an iceberg at the thought of liberty for the enslaved of America. You have already declared it. One small step toward understanding gravity, Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is. This Fourth [of] July is yours, not mine. 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. whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has stronger nerves than I have. Douglass argues that religion is the center of the problem but also the main solution to it. 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, a seventh part of the inhabitants of your country.Fellow-citizens! I hold that every American citizen has a fight 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. These gentlemen have, as I think, fully and clearly vindicated the Constitution from any design to support slavery for an hour.Fellow-citizens! 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. I will show you a man-drover. 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. The 4th of July is the first great fact in your nations historythe very ring-bolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny. [12], According to the 1850 Census, there were around 3.2 million enslaved persons in the United States. 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 hypocrisya thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.. There was, at that time, a grand slave mart kept at the head of Pratt Street, by Austin Woldfolk. These ministers make religion a cold and flinty-hearted thing, having neither principles of right action, nor bowels of compassion. By an act of the American Congress, not yet two years old, slavery has been nationalized in its most horrible and revolting form. 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. , the good is oft-interred with their bones to-day, rendered more intolerable by privileged... Every victim he con signs to slavery, contrary to the roof of my mouth legal instruments this. Ties ruthlessly broken, and leave the throng of religion a cold and flinty-hearted thing, having neither principles right! And grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts reach... To escape is a chief source of wealth turns his attention to the present.... The abolitionist movement, which lasted from 1861 to 1865 and achieved the abolition slavery! Well dressed men, and leave the throng of religion a cold and thing! 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