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. Douglass was a former slave of the 19th century and soon became a leader during the Abolitionist Movement. It is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. Not for thieves and robbers, enemies of society, merely, but for men guilty of no crime. He faults America for utter hypocrisy and betrayal of those values in maintaining the institution of slavery. But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. 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. 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. His agents were sent into every town and county in Maryland, announcing their arrival, through the papers, and on flaming hand-bills, headed CASH FOR NEGROES. He describes the legislation as "tyrannical," and believes that it is in "violation of justice.". To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding.There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, that does not know that slavery is wrong for him.What, 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 irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to bum their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? 4th period Mrs. Landrew Fredrick Douglass Frederick Douglass was an escaped slave who became a prominent activist, author and public speaker. By that most foul and fiendish of all human decrees, the liberty and person of every man are put in peril. You have already declared it. Summary: "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" In "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?", otherwise known as "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro," Frederick Douglassoutlines a careful argument against the institution of slavery and more specifically the Fugitive Slave Act. that he is the rightful owner of his own body? 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. Her speed had faltered under the weight of her child and her chains! As with rivers so with nations. A self-taught man, he escaped from slavery and eventually became a leader in the abolitionist movement. the feeling of despair in the face of obstacles. 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. By an act of the American Congress, not yet two years old, slavery has been nationalized in its most horrible and revolting form. I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people!By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. That point is conceded already. Great for your high school American Literature class. 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. Did this law concern the mint, anise, and cuminabridge the fight 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. 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. Her speed had faltered under the weight of her child and her chains! Where these go, may also go the merciless slave-hunter. The country can progress like it has before, transforming from being a colony of a far-away king to an independent nation. Worksheet Excerpt Analyzing Rhetorical Devices in "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?": The fiat of the Almighty, Let there be Light, has not yet spent its force. Ossie DavisA Voice Ringing O'er the Gale! If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.. The duty to extirpate and destroy it, is admitted even by our DOCTORS OF DIVINITY. 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 or to write. 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. The British accomplished this through religion or more specifically, the church. I have better employments for my time and strength than such arguments would imply.What, then, remains to be argued? 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. 5.0. Yet his monument is built up by the price of human blood, and the traders in the bodies and souls of men shoutWe have Washington to our father.Alas! Great streams are not easily turned from channels, worn deep in the course of ages. Here you will see men and women reared like swine for the market. [27], In the United States, the speech is widely taught in history and English classes in high school and college. 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. I take it, therefore, that it is not presumption in a private citizen to form an opinion of that instrument.Now, take the Constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. Yea! Thoughts expressed on one side of the Atlantic are, distinctly heard on the other. Another remarkable thing about Douglass is that he was an early champion of voting rights for women. The evil that men do, lives after them, The good is oft-interred with their bones. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. To me the American slave-trade is a terrible reality. To find out what elements make the speech 'What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?' They perambulate the country, and crowd the highways of the nation, with droves of human stock. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.Fellow-citizens; above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! 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.What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? A John Knox would be seen at every church door, and heard from every pulpit, and Fillmore would have no more quarter than was shown by Knox, to the beautiful, but treacherous queen Mary of Scotland. was delivered in the decade preceding the American Civil War, which lasted from 1861 to 1865 and achieved the abolition of slavery. Space is comparatively annihilated. [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. The occasion was the Society's Fourth of July celebration, but Douglass refused to give the speech on July 4; he would not celebrate the holiday so long as African Americans remained enslaved. During the 1850's, the Fourth of July served as a reminder of the many horrors and injustices in the world. Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to. 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, and not a vital principle, requiring active benevolence, justice, love and good will towards man. This Fourth [of] July is yours, not mine. 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. Rhetorical Analysis Of Harvey Fourth Of July. Your lawmakers have commanded all good citizens to engage in this hellish sport. In an 1868 speech, he said, No man should be excluded from the government on the basis of his color, no woman on account of her sex. Nobody doubts it. They petitioned and remonstrated; they did so in a decorous, respectful, and loyal manner. Who can reason on such a proposition? He also wrote a letter to Ida B. This trade is one of the peculiarities of American institutions. dismay. The little experience I have had in addressing public meetings, in country schoolhouses, avails me nothing on the present occasion. 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? Read its preamble, consider its purposes. Nations do not now stand in the same relation to each other that they did ages ago. speaking of it relatively, and positively, negatively, and affirmatively. 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. Knowledge was then confined and enjoyed by the privileged few, and the multitude walked on in mental darkness. [11] Additionally, he had spoken there less than three months prior to this speech, on March 25. Oh! Would you argue more, and denounce less, would you persuade more, and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed. And it also imposed severe penalties on anyone who helped enslaved people to escape. Tell me citizens, WHERE, under the sun, you can witness a spectacle more fiendish and shocking. Nevertheless, Douglass claims that this can change. The Act also denied suspected slaves trial by jury or even the ability to testify on their own behalf in court. What to the Slave is the Fourth of July | Historical Context The Colonial regime paved way for the transportation of slaves from different parts of the world, mostly from the African continent to work in southern states of America on cash crop plantations that generated a great source of income. He expresses his belief in the speech that he and other slaves are fighting the same fight in terms of wishing to be free that White Americans, the ancestors of the white people he is addressing, fought seventy years earlier. But its quite another to change the way you see yourself and to grow into a person deeply committed to long-term interracial coalition building. Three score years and ten is the allotted time for individual men; but nations number their years by thousands. 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. How can we sing the Lords song in a strange land? In several states, this trade is a chief source of wealth. 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. You know what is a swine-drover? What is now known as the "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" speech was delivered on July 5, 1852 as an address to the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society in Rochester, New York. Ever ready to drink, to treat, and to gamble. On the other hand it will be found to contain principles and purposes, entirely hostile to the existence of slavery.I have detained my audience entirely too long already. Advertisement for the pamphlet of Douglass' speech from the July 12, 1852 edition of Frederick Douglass' Paper (formerly The North Star), Douglass begins by saying that the fathers of the nation were great statesmen, and that the values expressed in the Declaration of Independence were "saving principles", and the "ringbolt of your nation's destiny", stating, "stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost." By an act of the American Congress, not yet two years old, Mason and Dixons line has been obliterated, Did this law concern the mint, anise, and cumin. Were not only going to be reading books like White Fragility, and Divided by Faith, but were also going to read and watch a number of speeches by Martin Luther King Jr., and documentaries like 13th and King in the Wilderness, as we try to get at the root of racial division so we can come together to remove it. 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? 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. [9][10] He had previously lived in Boston, but did not want his newspaper to interfere with sales of The Liberator, published by William Lloyd Garrison. My business, if I have any here to-day, is with the present. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the lame man leap as an hart.But, such is not the state of the case. The 4th of July is the first great fact in your nation's historythe very ring-bolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny. Washington could not die till he had broken the chains of his slaves. Born into slavery around 1818, Douglass became a key leader of the abolitionist movement. It is fashionable to do so; but there was a time when to pronounce against England, and in favor of the cause of the colonies, tried mens souls. or is it in the temple? Your broad republican domain is hunting ground for men. 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. Need I remind you that a similar thing is being done all over this country to-day? The crack you heard, was the sound of the slave-whip; the scream you heard, was from the woman you saw with the babe. What will this years event be like? 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 mere tools and body-guards of the tyrants of Virginia and Carolina. Douglass referred not only to the captivity of enslaved people, but to the merciless exploitation and the cruelty and torture that slaves were subjected to in the United States. That trade has long since been denounced by this government, as piracy. ARI . 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. What to the American slave is your Fourth of July? Now, there are certain rules of interpretation, for the proper understanding of all legal instruments. See, too, that girl of thirteen, weeping, yes! 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