Oh, had I, the ability, and could I reach the nations ear, I would today pour out a fiery steam of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. That which is inhuman, cannot be divine! 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. 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. In speaking of the American church, however, let it be distinctly understood that I mean the great mass of the religious organizations of our land. You were under the British Crown. 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. Racist Ex-University Of Kentucky 'Karen' Sophia Rosing Is Charged For Assaulting Black Student. Frederick Douglass thought that such rationalizations were crap, and he had the right to think so. If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. They believed in order; but not in the order of tyranny. We need the storm. Transcribe your audio files to find high-impact insights in minutes. They seized upon eternal principles, and set a glorious example in their defense. It is a religion for oppressors, tyrants, man-stealers, andthugs. Many of you understand them better than I do. Youmay rejoice,Imust mourn. They that can, may; I cannot. My subject then, fellow citizens, is American slavery. The slaveholders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. 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. I leave, therefore, the great deeds of your fathers to other gentlemen whose claim to have been regularly descended will be less likely to be disputed than mine! Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. 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 The time was when such could be done. Space is comparatively annihilated. Fellow citizens, this murderous traffic is, today, in active operation in this boasted republic. 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. Get a weekly digest of the weeks most important transcripts in your inbox. 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, Mark them! At the time of the delivery of this speech, Douglass had been living in Rochester, New York for several years editing a weekly abolitionist newspaper. He was invited to give a fourth of July speech by the Ladies Anti-Slavery Society of Rochester. In the early 1850s, tensions over slavery were high across the county. But, your fathers, who had not adopted the fashionable idea of this day, of the infallibility of government, and the absolute character of its acts, presumed to differ from the home government in respect to the wisdom and the justice of some of those burdens and restraints. 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. The freedom gained is yours; and you, therefore, may properly celebrate this anniversary. speaking of it relatively, and positively, negatively, and affirmatively. Its future might be shrouded in gloom, and the hope of its prophets go out in sorrow. in preference to the gospel,as preached by those Divines! Nobody doubts it. 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. The hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed and its crimes against God and man must be denounced. 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 ions, 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? The time for such argument is past. Douglass gave this speech to a group of abolitionists 168 years ago. It is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth. There was, at that time, a grand slave mart kept at the head of Pratt Street, by Austin Woldfolk. 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. 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. In glaring violation of justice, in shameless disregard of the forms of administering law, in cunning arrangement to entrap the defenseless, and in diabolical intent, this Fugitive Slave Law stands alone in the annals of tyrannical legislation. Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! 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. 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. Oceans no longer divide, but link nations together. Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation? I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. Even Mammon seems to have quitted his grasp on this day. 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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 hypocrisy a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. They, that can, may. To do so would be to make myself ridiculous and to offer an insult to your understanding. Discover why Rev is the #1 speech-to-text service in the world. WebFrederick Douglass, Fifth of July speech (1852) O! 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. We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future. I cannot. Walled cities and empires have become unfashionable. 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. Ex-Senator Benton tells us that the price of men was never higher than 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, the British Government persisted in the exactions complained of. Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice embodied in that Declaration of Independence extended to us? Yea! The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong city. How unlike the politicians of an hour! On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass gave a speech at an Independence Day celebration organized by the Rochester Ladies Anti-Slavery Society. The testimony of Senator Breese, Lewis Cass, and many others that might be named, who are everywhere esteemed as sound lawyers, so regard the constitution. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.. But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has O! 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? But I fancy, I hear some of my audience say it is just in this circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression upon the public mind. But I differ from those who charge this baseness on the framers of the Constitution of the United States. This, for the purpose of this celebration, is the 4th of July. There are illustrations of it near and remote, ancient and modern. WebA speech celebrating both Lincoln and African Americans freedom wrought by Lincoln. Who can reason on such a proposition? Read the full text below of the sage words from one of the greatest orators of all time. The Sharps, the Clarksons, the Wilberforces, the Buxtons, and Burchells and the Knibbs, were alike famous for their piety, and for their philanthropy. 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. I will not. Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience nor grace my speech with any high sounding exordium. Fellow citizens, above your national tumultuous joy I hear the mournful wail of millions whose chains heavy and grievous yesterday are today rendered more intolerable by the jubilant shouts that reach them. WebFrederick Douglass speech Historical Document "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro" 1852 Resource Bank Contents Click here for the text of this historical document. As the champions of oppressors, the chosen men of American theology have appeared men, honored for their so-called piety, and their real learning. With them, justice, liberty and humanity were final; not slavery and oppression. A speech given at Rochester, New York, July 5, 1852 . Web" was a speech delivered by Frederick Douglass on July 5, 1852, at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York, at a meeting organized by the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery How circumspect, exact and proportionate were all their movements! No, I will not. Go search where you will. 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. 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? Would you argue more, and denounce less, would you persuade more, and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed. 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? The most accurate AI-powered transcription on the market. weeping, as she thinks of the mother from whom she has been torn! 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.
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