Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? It would, certainly, prove nothing, as to what part I might have taken, had I lived during the great controversy of 1776. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. The fate of many a slave has depended upon the turn of a single card; and many a child has been snatched from the arms of its mother by bargains arranged in a state of brutal drunkenness.The flesh-mongers gather up their victims by dozens, and drive them, chained, to the general depot at Baltimore. The time for such argument is passed.At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. But now is the time, the important time. 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. ROY:One of the things that Douglass writings shows us is that he believed in amplifying a variety of voices. What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.. He thinks they were extremely intelligent, and the thinks it is admirable that when they realized they were oppressed by Britain, they rebelled. 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. To me the American slave-trade is a terrible reality. He refers to the Constitution as a "Glorious Liberty Document". 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. 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. 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. As the project scholar, my role is to advise the process as it rolls out, to give a talk that provides contemporary and historical context and to facilitate the community discussion around the speech against the backdrop of other relevant issues. 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. The Bible addresses all such persons as scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, who pay tithe of mint, anise, and cumin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith.But the church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of the slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? They, however, gradually flow back to the same old channel, and flow on as serenely as ever. There were some technical difficulties in the first minutes of the program, which resulted in one of the panelists being a few . 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!Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? Nations do not now stand in the same relation to each other that they did ages ago. "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? However, if slavery were abolished and equal rights given to all, that would no longer be the case. 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. From Boston to London is now a holiday excursion. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. There, the question of emancipation was a high religious question. For black men there are neither law, justice, humanity, not religion. 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. What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? Creative people have bypassed gatekeepers for centuries to distribute what they wanted to share so badly. They find common ground in Houghton Library exhibition. In the end, Douglass wants to keep his hope and faith in humanity high. What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible being? The 4th of July is the first great fact in your nations historythe very ring-bolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny. According to Douglass, these inconsistencies have made the United States the object of mockery and often contempt among the various nations of the world. There are exceptions, and I thank God that there are. Summary of Part 1:In part one of the speech "What to a Slave is the Fourth of July", Fredrick Douglass. He describes the legislation as "tyrannical," and believes that it is in "violation of justice.". He argues that the Constitution does not permit slavery, contrary to the claims of contemporary defenders of the institution. or is it in the temple? I am glad, fellow-citizens, that your nation is so young. 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. The founding fathers left black people and women out of these rights for "everyone." 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? It is said that America is built on the idea of liberty and freedom, but Douglass tells his audience that more than anything, it is built on inconsistencies and hypocrisies that have been overlooked for so long they appear to be truths. The arm of the Lord is not shortened, and the doom of slavery is certain. The minister of American justice is bound by the law to hear but one side; and that side, is the side of the oppressor. 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. 15 November's Documents in Detail webinar was about Frederick Douglass's What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?, his oration delivered on 5 July 1862. In short, it gave the federal government an active role in maintaining the Souths system of slavery. official permission or approval. So its important that our city and our society are outraged by the recent murders of unarmed black people. There I see the tenderest ties ruthlessly broken, to gratify the lust, caprice and rapacity of the buyers and sellers of men. That trade has long since been denounced by this government, as piracy. It is a religion for oppressors, tyrants, man-stealers, and thugs. But a change has now come over the affairs of mankind. Tell me citizens, WHERE, under the sun, you can witness a spectacle more fiendish and shocking. A feeling has crept over me, quite unfavorable to the exercise of my limited powers of speech. Rhetoricians R. L. Heath and D. Waymer refer to this as the "paradox of the positive" because it highlights how something positive and meant to be positive can also exclude individuals. Douglass was a former slave of the 19th century and soon became a leader during the Abolitionist Movement. 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, and let the weight of twenty millions crush and destroy it forever!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.Then, I dare to affirm, notwithstanding all I have said before, your fathers stooped, basely stooped. If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. Douglass builds his argument by using surprising contrasts, plain facts, and provocative antithesis. In "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" Frederick Douglass sought not only to convince people of the wrongfulness of slavery but also to make abolition more acceptable to Northern whites. Not for thieves and robbers, enemies of society, merely, but for men guilty of no crime. Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has stronger nerves than I have. Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. On the 2d of July, 1776, the old Continental Congress, to the dismay of the lovers of ease, and the worshipers of property, clothed that dreadful idea with all the authority of national sanction. Noble men may be found, scattered all over these Northern States, of whom Henry Ward Beecher of Brooklyn, Samuel J. Great for your high school American Literature class. Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? 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. 2003. I do not remember ever to have appeared as a speaker before any assembly more. Follow the drove to New Orleans. It is a slander upon their memory, at least, so I believe. 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. 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. Kate Harris Date Published September 28, 2016 Last Modified November 14, 2021 Description. Cling to this daycling to it, and to its principles, with the grasp of a storm-tossed mariner to a spar at midnight, Neither steam nor lightning had then been reduced to order and discipline, With them, justice, liberty and humanity were final; not slavery and oppression. The crack you heard, was the sound of the slave-whip; the scream you heard, was from the woman you saw with the babe. Over 150,000 persons were sold between 1820 and 1830, and over 300,000 were sold between 1850 and 1860.[15]. your republican politics, not less than your republican religion, are flagrantly inconsistent. dismay. 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. Douglass addressed a part of the population for which the day had huge significance the true independence, he argues, is not for the American people, but for the American slave. These gentlemen have, as I think, fully and clearly vindicated the Constitution from any design to support slavery for an hour.Fellow-citizens! 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." That people contented themselves under the shadow of Abrahams great name, while they repudiated the deeds which made his name great. But we also need to invest as a city and as a society into reading and learning more about the present realities of oppressed peoples. The power is co-extensive with the Star-Spangled Banner and American Christianity. "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" remains one of the most effective and poignant condemnations of slavery in the canon of American abolitionist literature, a tribute to the moral character and oratorical skills of Frederick Douglass. 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. No nation can now shut itself up from the surrounding world, and trot round in the same old path of its fathers without interference. 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?. What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future, Douglass said. Douglass wants to keep his hope and faith in humanity high former slave of the is... 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