Frederick Douglass: (01:08) Behold the practical operation of this internal slave-trade, the American slave-trade, sustained by American politics and America religion. will be found by Americans. The coming into being of a nation, in any circumstances, is an interesting event. The most accurate AI-powered transcription on the market. Douglass views the monument and the day's ceremonies as reflecting honor upon African 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. That trade has long since been denounced by this government, as piracy. Like our content? 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? The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. They succeeded; and to-day you reap the fruits of their success. Create a better, more engaging experience for every student. 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. 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. For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. WebOn December 3, 1860, Frederick Douglass and a group of fellow abolitionists met at the Tremont Temple Baptist Church in Boston for a discussion centered around the following 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. When a child, my soul was often pierced with a sense of its horrors. 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. I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies. The din of business, too, is hushed. The population of the country, at the time, stood at the insignificant number of three millions. When a sufficient number have been collected here, a ship is chartered, for the purpose of conveying the forlorn crew to Mobile, or to New Orleans. 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 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! Were the nation older, the patriots heart might be sadder, and the reformers brow heavier. 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. welcome atheism! 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. Fellow-citizens! 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 burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? Become a freelancer and work on your own terms. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. 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. To do so would be to make myself ridiculous and to offer an insult to your understanding. Read its preamble, consider its purposes. Walled cities and empires have become unfashionable. 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. Need I tell you that the Jews are not the only people who built the tombs of the prophets, and garnished the sepulchres of the righteous? Frederick Douglass: (06:03) Try Rev and save time transcribing, captioning, and subtitling. 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. At a time like this, scorching irony not convincing argument is needed. 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. It has made itself the bulwark of American slavery, and the shield of American slave-hunters. 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 This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. These ministers make religion a cold and flinty-hearted thing, having neither principles of right action, nor bowels of compassion. A feeling has crept over me, quite unfavorable to the exercise of my limited powers of speech. They were quiet men; but they did not shrink from agitating against oppression. There are illustrations of it near and remote, ancient and modern. I cannot. It is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. 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. I am not included within the pales of this glorious anniversary. Make your content more accessible to people with disabilities. I shall see, this day, and its popular characteristics, from the slaves point of view. As noted here, that banquet was attended by prominent African-American professional men in celebration of the twenty-first anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation.After the toast provided by former Senator Blanche K. Bruce, It is the antagonistic force in your government, the only thing that seriously disturbs and endangers yourUnion. 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 it at the gateway? Transcribe your audio files to find high-impact insights in minutes. It is, however, a notable fact that, while so much execration is poured out by Americans upon those engaged in the foreign slave-trade, the men engaged in the slave-trade between the states pass without condemnation, and their business is deemed honorable. Yet they persevered. Not for thieves and robbers, enemies of society, merely, but for men guilty of no crime. WebDescription. Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation? Our eyes are met with demonstrations of joyous enthusiasm. Just here, the idea of a total separation of the colonies from the crown was born! But a still more inhuman, disgraceful, and scandalous state of things remains to be presented. They strip the love of God of its beauty, and leave the throng of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form. 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. I remember, also, that, as a people, Americans are remarkably familiar with all facts which make in their own favor. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. Would you argue more, and denounce less, would you persuade more, and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed. The whole scene, as I look back to it, was simple, dignified and sublime. 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 speaking of it, relatively and positively, negatively and affirmatively? Frederick Douglass thought that such rationalizations were crap, and he had the right to think so. But now is the time, the important time. Your lawmakers have commanded all good citizens to engage in this hellish sport. Roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world. 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. My soul sickens at the sight. And it would go hard with that politician who presumed to solicit the votes of the people without inscribing this motto on his banner. The Bible addresses all such persons as scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, who pay tithe ofmint, anise,andcumin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith.. In the summer of 2020, the U.S. commemorated Independence Day amid nationwide They were great men too great enough to give fame to a great age. 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. Oppression makes a wise man mad. we wept when we remembered Zion. WebFrederick Douglass, Fifth of July speech (1852) O! I am glad, fellow-citizens, that your nation is so young. What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? - Wikipedia WebAn excerpt from the 1847 Frederick Douglass speech given for the anniversary of the American Anti-Slavery Society. Speech To him, your celebration is a sham, your boasted Liberty, an unholy license, your national greatness, swelling vanity. The papers and placards say, that I am to deliver a 4th [of] July oration. Then, I dare to affirm, notwithstanding all I have said before, your fathers stooped, basely stooped. Web"The Lessons of the Hour" Speech by Frederick Douglass, January 9, 1894 Friends and Fellow Citizens : No man should come before an audience like the one by whose presence I am now honored, without a noble object and a fixed and earnest purpose. Knowledge was then confined and enjoyed by the privileged few, and the multitude walked on in mental darkness. welcome anything! The task before me is one which requires much previous thought and study for its proper performance. 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 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. 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.. Mark them! The Best Speech-to-Text Solution for Your Business Learn how Rev fits into your businesses workflow. Fair use is permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. With them, justice, liberty and humanity were final; not slavery and oppression. 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 has been denounced with burning words, from the high places of the nation, as an execrable traffic. They who did so were accounted in their day, plotters of mischief, agitators and rebels, dangerous men. The manhood of the slave is conceded. whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. I say it with a sad sense of disparity between us. 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. I will show you a man-drover. I have detained my audience entirely too long already. 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. 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. That people contented themselves under the shadow of Abrahams great name, while they repudiated the deeds which made his name great. It is neither. You know what is a swine-drover? 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? A Nation's Story: What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? They felt themselves the victims of grievous wrongs, wholly incurable in their colonial capacity. Who can reason on such a proposition? I repeat, I am glad this is so. Your fathers staked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, on the cause of their country. 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! 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. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. In their admiration of liberty, they lost sight of all other interests. Where these are, man is not sacred. I shall not be charged with slandering Americans, if I say I think the American side of any question may be safely left in American hands. You will see one of these human flesh-jobbers, armed with pistol, whip and bowie-knife, driving a company of a hundred men, women, and children, from the Potomac to the slave market at New Orleans. It is not the gentle shower, but thunder. Such a declaration of agreement on my part would not be worth much to anybody. On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? I take it, therefore, that it is not presumption in a private citizen to form an opinion of that instrument.