If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. Yet they persevered. Calculate how much it costs to transcribe, caption, or subtitle your content. This Fourth [of] July isyours, notmine. 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. It esteems sacrifice above mercy; psalm-singing above right doing; solemn meetings above practical righteousness. Under these, and innumerable other disadvantages, your fathers declared for liberty and independence and triumphed. 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.
Frederick Douglass delivered 'best Fourth of July speech in 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? The eye of the reformer is met with angry flashes, portending disastrous times; but his heart may well beat lighter at the thought that America is young, and that she is still in the impressible stage of her existence. Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? The cause of liberty may be stabbed by the men who glory in the deeds of your fathers. There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, that does not know that slavery is wrong for him. It is a religion for oppressors, tyrants, man-stealers, andthugs. To say now that America was right, and England wrong, is exceedingly easy. To me the American slave-trade is a terrible reality. 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. Frederick Douglass: (04:09) Where these go, may also go the merciless slave-hunter. The whole scene, as I look back to it, was simple, dignified and sublime. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. 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. Is it not astonishing that, while we are ploughing, planting and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, silver and gold; that, while we are reading, writing and cyphering, acting as clerks, merchants and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators and teachers; that, while we are engaged in all manner of enterprises common to other men, digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hill-side, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives and children, and, above all, confessing and worshipping the Christians God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave, we are called upon to prove that we are men! And instead of being the honest men I have before declared them to be, they were the veriest imposters that ever practiced on mankind. Transcripts & captions for a better media workflow. 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? It destroys your moral power abroad; it corrupts your politicians at home. Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? My subject then, fellow citizens, is American 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. Frederick Douglass: (02:57) welcome anything! As noted here, that banquet was attended by prominent Frederick Douglass: (08:30) They showed forbearance; but that they knew its limits.
Our Composite Nation: Frederick Douglass America The propriety of the nation must be startled. Frederick Douglass: (07:35) You have already declared it. Let this damning fact be perpetually told. In their admiration of liberty, they lost sight of all other interests. There is consolation in the thought that America is young. Nations do not now stand in the same relation to each other that they did ages ago. 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. Everywhere, in this country, it is safe to speak of this foreign slave-trade, as a most inhuman traffic, opposed alike to the laws of God and of man. President John F. Kennedy On July 4, 1962 President John F. Kennedy delivered this speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Frederick 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, thenwill I argue with you that the slave is a man! speaking of it relatively, and positively, negatively, and affirmatively. The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong city. Roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. You were under the British Crown. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth. But the church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of the slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors. Where these are, man is not sacred. Hear his savage yells and his blood-chilling oaths, as he hurries on his affrighted captives! The flesh-mongers gather up their victims by dozens, and drive them, chained, to the general depot at Baltimore. The manhood of the slave is conceded. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.. Is that a question for Republicans? The din of business, too, is hushed. Morel is right that the 1876 speech by Frederick Douglass is remarkable and masterful. 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. These men were generally well dressed men, and very captivating in their manners. You hurl your anathemas at the crowned headed tyrants of Russia and Austria, and pride yourselves on your Democratic institutions, while you yourselves consent to be the meretoolsand body-guardsof the tyrants of Virginia and Carolina.
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. They succeeded; and to-day you reap the fruits of their success. 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. These wretched people are to be sold singly, or in lots, to suit purchasers. Your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless, your shouts of Liberty and equality, hallow mocked, your prayers and hymns your sermons and Thanksgivings with all your religious parade in solemnity are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, a thin veil to cover up crimes, which would disgrace a nation of savages. 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, . speech was delivered on July 5, 1852 as an address to the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society in Rochester, New York. Before you read the speech you can follow these links to learn more about Douglasss life and the evolution of his thought in this period. Short bio of Frederick Douglass The Frederick Douglass Papers Library of Congress It makes its pathway over and under the sea, as well as on the earth. The far off and almost fabulous Pacific rolls in grandeur at our feet. Its the news, without the news. There is blasphemy in the thought. You may rejoice. Fromwhat quarter, I beg to know, has proceeded a fire so deadly upon our ranks, during the last two years, as from the Northern pulpit? Full transcript of the famous speech What to the Slave is the 4th of July? by Frederick Douglass. Douglass views the monument and the day's ceremonies as reflecting honor upon African 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. 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. Its quite a remarkable speech as Douglass in a way reenacts his own journey in appreciation for the work that Lincoln did, not just for blacks, but for whites in this country. 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. They are food for the cotton-field, and the deadly sugar-mill. Your fathers have lived, died, and have done their work, and have done much of it well. 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. They did so in the form of a resolution; and as we seldom hit upon resolutions, drawn up in our day whose transparency is at all equal to this, it may refresh your minds and help my story if I read it. 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 WebOn January 9, 1894, at Washington, D.C.'s, Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church, Frederick Douglass delivered his "The Lessons of the Hour" speech, which addressed the Is it not astonishing that while we are plowing, planting and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metal of brass, iron, copper, silver, and gold, that while we are reading, writing, and ciphering acting as clerks, merchants, and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators, and teachers that we are engaged in all the enterprises, common to other men, digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific feeding sheep and cattle on the hillside, living, moving, acting, thinking, planting, living in families as husbands, wives, and children, and above all confessing and worshiping the Christian God and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave. Oceans no longer divide, but link nations together. The Celestial Empire, the mystery of ages, is being solved. There is hope in the thought, and hope is much needed, under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon. 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. 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.
Frederick Douglass, Fifth of July speech (1852) Some of these have had wives and children, dependent on them for bread; but of this, no account was made. 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! Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? We are called upon to prove that we are men. Towards the end of With them, nothing was settled that was not right. 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. 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. 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 They were great men too great enough to give fame to a great age. 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. WebDescription. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost. Speech-to-Text API for pre-recorded audio, powered by the worlds leading speech recognition engine. 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. Transcript Descendants of Frederick Douglass read excerpts from one of his most famous speeches: What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?
Oration by Frederick Douglass, delivered on the occasion of the Americans! welcome atheism! 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 Your broad republican domain is hunting ground formen. 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. Section 107, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. These rules are well established. Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe. Frederick Douglass thought that such rationalizations were crap, and he had the right to think so. The document is in the form of a Google Docs so it has a translation tool, dictionary, and voice to text. In the text it states, above all, confessing and worshipping the Christian God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave- we are called upon to prove that we are men? (Douglas 763). And the conscience of the nation must be roused. 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. Fellow-citizens; above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. What have I, or those I represent to do with your national independence. The charter of our liberties, which every citizen has a personal interest in understanding thoroughly. 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. 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. Would you argue more and denounce less? Who can reason on such a proposition? A general shout would go up from the church, demanding repeal, repeal, instant repeal! May he not hope that high lessons of wisdom, of justice and of truth, will yet give direction to her destiny? 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. Thu 5 Jul 2018 07.00 EDT Last modified on Wed 24 Jul 2019 11.58 EDT. I repeat, I am glad this is so. 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. 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. 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, 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. Is that a question for Republicans? Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? This, however, did not answer the purpose. No abuse, no outrage whether in taste, sport or avarice, can now hide itself from the all-pervading light. His death, according to Douglass was not only tragic, but also prevented recently freed slaves and African Americans from gaining the ear of wise and well-intentioned leader. You have already declared it. 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. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! I will not equivocate. Without this right, the liberty of an American citizen would be as insecure as that of a Frenchman. The message of Frederick Douglasss 1852 speech on the contradiction of Americas just ideals and unjust realities endures. Do you mean citizens to mock me by asking me to speak today?
Speech Fellow citizens, this murderous traffic is, today, in active operation in this boasted republic. This celebration also marks the beginning of another year of your national life; and reminds you that the Republic of America is now 76 years old. He rose from the shackles of slavery to become an author, With head, and heart, and hand Ill strive, 8 Times Obama Showed Trump How Presidents Are Supposed To Celebrate The Fourth Of July, Welcome To The Cookout: 10 Lit Movies To Watch During July Fourth Holiday Weekend, 'Dilbert' Comic Creator Calls Black People A 'Hate Group,' Urges Segregation So Whites Can 'Escape', Bernie Mac Show Star Camille Winbush Is Not Ashamed Of Joining OnlyFans, Kyle Rittenhouse Faces 2nd Civil Lawsuit, Continues To Beg For Money From His Supporters, Ben Stein's 'Aunt Jemima' Rant Is A Master Class On White Privilege, Why Did tWitch Kill Himself? 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 acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. Racist Ex-University Of Kentucky 'Karen' Sophia Rosing Is Charged For Assaulting Black Student. I think that, in whatever else I may be deficient, I have Its future might be shrouded in gloom, and the hope of its prophets go out in sorrow. Douglass gave this speech to a group of abolitionists 168 years ago. 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. The greatest and best of British statesmen admitted its justice, and the loftiest eloquence of the British Senate came to its support. The Fugitive SlaveLawmakes mercy to them a crime; and bribes the judge who tries them.
VIDEO: Frederick Douglass' descendants deliver his 'Fourth of July' that it should be so; yet so it is. be warned! 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.. 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 Sharps, the Clarksons, the Wilberforces, the Buxtons, and Burchells and the Knibbs, were alike famous for their piety, and for their philanthropy. 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. That point is conceded already. 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. 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. The population of the country, at the time, stood at the insignificant number of three millions. Would you argue more, and denounce less, would you persuade more, and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed. That he is the rightful owner of his own body? 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, I will use the severest language I can command. WebFrederick Douglass speech What to a Slave is the Fourth of July effectively argues against slavery. You glory in your refinement and your universal education yet you maintain a system as barbarous and dreadful as ever stained the character of a nation a system begun in avarice, supported in pride, and perpetuated in cruelty.
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