frederick douglass speech transcript frederick douglass speech transcript

be warned! In a final celebratory post for Black History Month 2023, it is worth returning to the 1883 Douglass Banquet. The Celestial Empire, the mystery of ages, is being solved. I know that apologies of this sort are generally considered flat and unmeaning. They saw themselves treated with sovereign indifference, coldness and scorn. I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies. 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? Born to an enslaved family in 1818, Frederick Douglass never knew his actual birthday, a fact not uncommon for those enslaved. But I admit, where all is plain, there is nothing to be argued. who stand as the very lights of the church, have shamelessly given the sanction of religion and the Bible to the whole slave system. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of Liberty and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems were inhuman mockery in sacrilegious irony. Space is comparatively annihilated. Copyright 2023 Interactive One, LLC. At some future period I will gladly avail myself of an opportunity to give this subject a full and fair discussion. There, see the old man, with locks thinned and gray. There is hope in the thought, and hope is much needed, under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon. Frederick Douglass, What to the Slave Is the Fourth Full transcript of the famous speech What to the Slave is the 4th of July? by Frederick Douglass. Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe. 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. There is blasphemy in the thought. There was, at that time, a grand slave mart kept at the head of Pratt Street, by Austin Woldfolk. Yea! To arrest it, to put an end to it, this nation keeps a squadron, at immense cost, on the coast of Africa. Of this sort of change they are always strongly in favor. I scarcely need say, fellow-citizens, that my opinion of those measures fully accords with that of your fathers. 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. 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. 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. Fellow-citizens! Frederick Douglass's, What To the Slave Is the Fourth of The Fugitive SlaveLawmakes mercy to them a crime; and bribes the judge who tries them. Let it be thundered around the world, that, in tyrant-killing, king-hating, people-loving, democratic, Christian America, the seats of justice are filled with judges, who hold their offices under an open and palpablebribe, and are bound, in deciding in the case of a mans liberty,hear only his accusers! weeping, as she thinks of the mother from whom she has been torn! There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, that does not know that slavery is wrong for him. 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. WebAn excerpt from the 1847 Frederick Douglass speech given for the anniversary of the American Anti-Slavery Society. But, to proceed. The anti-slavery movementtherewas not an anti-church movement, for the reason that the church took its full share in prosecuting that movement: and the anti-slavery movement in this country will cease to be an anti-church movement, when the church of this country shall assume a favorable, instead of a hostile position towards that movement. Oh! 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. Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetual remembrance. But, such is not the state of the case. I have better employments for my time and strength than such arguments would imply. The population was weak and scattered, and the country a wilderness unsubdued. Fellow-citizens! A general shout would go up from the church, demanding repeal, repeal, instant repeal! 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. The crack you heard, was the sound of the slave-whip; the scream you heard, was from the woman you saw with the babe. With little experience and with less learning, I have been able to throw my thoughts hastily and imperfectly together; and WebIn this speech, Frederick Douglass reflected on how the outpouring of joy at the conclusion of the Civil War turned to mourning with Lincolns assassination. Where these are, man is not sacred. The Best Speech-to-Text Solution for Your Business Learn how Rev fits into your businesses workflow. There is blasphemy in the thought. The anguish of my boyish heart was intense; and I was often consoled, when speaking to my mistress in the morning, to hear her say that the custom was very wicked; that she hated to hear the rattle of the chains, and the heart-rending cries. These gentlemen have, as I think, fully and clearly vindicated the Constitution from any design to support slavery for an hour. No abuse, no outrage whether in taste, sport or avarice, can now hide itself from the all-pervading light. When a child, my soul was often pierced with a sense of its horrors. There are illustrations of it near and remote, ancient and modern. If any man in this assembly thinks differently from me in this matter, and feels able to disprove my statements, I will gladly confront him at any suitable time and place he may select. What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible being? Calculate how much it costs to transcribe, caption, or subtitle your content. The hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed and its crimes against God and man must be denounced. An American judge gets ten dollars for every victim he consigns to slavery, and five, when he fails to do so. Walled cities and empires have become unfashionable. This 4th of July is yours, not mine. Is slavery among them? No! For my part, I would say, welcome infidelity! 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! Frederick Douglass: (08:30) Under these, and innumerable other disadvantages, your fathers declared for liberty and independence and triumphed. 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. Frederick Douglass: (03:37) They may sometimes rise in quiet and stately majesty, and inundate the land, refreshing and fertilizing the earth with their mysterious properties. Thoughts expressed on one side of the Atlantic, are distinctly heard on the other. 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 Of this fundamental work, this day is the anniversary. A RESTful API to access Revs workforce of fast, high quality transcriptionists and captioners. Community Reading: Frederick Douglass's "What 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? The cause of liberty may be stabbed by the men who glory in the deeds of your fathers. By an act of the American Congress, not yet two years old, slavery has been nationalized in its most horrible and revolting form. These men were generally well dressed men, and very captivating in their manners. And it would go hard with that politician who presumed to solicit the votes of the people without inscribing this motto on his banner. 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. 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. Their statesmanship looked beyond the passing moment, and stretched away in strength into the distant future. 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? What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? - Wikipedia 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. You may rejoice. They were quiet men; but they did not shrink from agitating against oppression. Speech Many of you understand them better than I do. But a change has now come over the affairs of mankind. 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. Your fathers have lived, died, and have done their work, and have done much of it well. What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible being? 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 Make your content more accessible to people with disabilities. Frederick Douglass thought that such rationalizations were crap, and he had the right to think so. Suicide Note Revealed After Shocking Death, Mississippi Cops Beat, Waterboarded Handcuffed Black Men, Shot 1 For Dating White Women': Lawyers, Indicted! Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. The sin of which it is guilty is one of omission as well as of commission. Frederick Douglass 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. 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 coming into being of a nation, in any circumstances, is an interesting event. Our eyes are met with demonstrations of joyous enthusiasm. But neither their familiar faces, nor the perfect gage I think I have of Corinthian Hall, seems to free me from embarrassment. 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 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. If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. Let this damning fact be perpetually told. For who is there so cold that a nation sympathy cannot warm him, who so adore it and dead to the claims of gratitude that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Frederick Douglass Read the full transcript here. 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. It has been denounced with burning words, from the high places of the nation, as an execrable traffic. Should I seem at ease, my appearance would much misrepresent me. This, however, did not answer the purpose. Oppression makes a wise man mad. I have detained my audience entirely too long already. 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. in preference to the gospel,as preached by those Divines! America is false to the past, false to the present and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. The drove moves tardily. 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. On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? As noted here, that banquet was attended by prominent Did this law concern the mint, anise, and cumin abridge the right 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. Transcripts & captions for a better media workflow. They were great men too great enough to give fame to a great age. Now, there are certain rules of interpretation, for the proper understanding of all legal instruments. The blessings in which you this day rejoice are not enjoyed in common. 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. May he not hope that high lessons of wisdom, of justice and of truth, will yet give direction to her destiny? Celebrating Frederick Douglass through Transcription YOUR HANDS ARE FULL OF BLOOD; cease to do evil, learn to do well; seek judgment; relieve the oppressed; judge for the fatherless; plead for the widow., The American church is guilty, when viewed in connection with what it is doing to uphold slavery; but it is superlatively guilty when viewed in connection with its ability to abolish slavery. 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. He mentions the fact to show that slavery is in no danger. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? when ye make many prayers, I will not hear. 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. Some of these have had wives and children, dependent on them for bread; but of this, no account was made. 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. Frederick Douglass: (09:38) They perambulate the country, and crowd the highways of the nation, with droves of human stock. Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. It is a slander upon their memory, at least, so I believe. It was a startling idea, much more so, than we, at this distance of time, regard it. 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 Citizens, your fathers made good that resolution. How unlike the politicians of an hour! One is struck with the difference between the attitude of the American church towards the anti-slavery movement, and that occupied by the churches in England towards a similar movement in that country. What have I, or those I represent to do with your national independence. They who did so were accounted in their day, plotters of mischief, agitators and rebels, dangerous men. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost. that it should be so; yet so it is. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. The slave holders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. This Fourth [of] July isyours, notmine. 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. The task before me is one which requires much previous thought and study for its proper performance. 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. Yea! I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the ring-bolt to the chain of your nations destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. President John F. Kennedy On July 4, 1962 President John F. Kennedy delivered this speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation, as a matter beset with great difficulty, involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard to be understood? Youmay rejoice,Imust mourn. There are exceptions, and I thank God that there are. With brave men there is always a remedy for oppression. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery. Translated on-screen subtitles for videos. I am not that man. 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.