Douglass denounces the churches for betraying their own biblical and Christian values. Not everyone. I am glad, fellow-citizens, that your nation is so young. [7], The Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society was founded in 1851. 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.Behold the practical operation of this internal slave-trade, the American slave-trade, sustained by American politics and America religion. 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? In the end, Douglass wants to keep his hope and faith in humanity high. Random House. welcome anything! GAZETTE: What is something you have discovered about Douglass while researching this speech and his work more broadly that people might be surprised to learn? 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. There, the church, true to its mission of ameliorating, elevating, and improving the condition of mankind, came forward promptly, bound up the wounds of the West Indian slave, and restored him to his liberty. Alison Drasner, the project coordinator for the Somerville Museum, teamed up with Dave Ortega at the Somerville Media Center to prerecord voices of 50 Somerville residents, including my 7-year-old daughter, Charlotte, to read sections of the speech. Wells, which was incorporated into the preface of her 1892 pamphlet Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases.. I am also hosting a summer reading and discussion series called Race, Fragility, and Anti-Racism through the Somerville Museum and the City on a Hill network of local churches. 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. These ministers make religion a cold and flinty-hearted thing, having neither principles of right action, nor bowels of compassion. Thoughts expressed on one side of the Atlantic are, distinctly heard on the other. 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. See, too, that girl of thirteen, weeping, yes! There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour. What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? In this respect, Douglass's views converged with that of Abraham Lincoln's[25] in that those politicians who were saying that the Constitution was a justification for their beliefs in regard to slavery were doing so dishonestly. But I differ from those who charge this baseness on the framers of the Constitution of the United States. 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. 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, then will I argue with you that the slave is a man!For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. The drove moves tardily. But a change has now come over the affairs of mankind. welcome atheism! your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery." Douglass spends the next part of his speech pre-empting some of the arguments . 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. He implored the Rochester, N.Y., audience to think about the ongoing oppression of Black Americans during a holiday celebrating . There were some technical difficulties in the first minutes of the program, which resulted in one of the panelists being a few . 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. The time was when such could be done. Table of Contents. 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. The fiat of the Almighty, Let there be Light, has not yet spent its force. I am not that man. Panel on dispossession of African Americans says burying truth keeps Black Americans dispossessed, Legal scholar and historian puts the push to remove Confederate statues in context, Members of the community share memories, plans, hopes for the holiday, Quantum computing simulation reveals possible wormhole-like dynamics. However, if slavery were abolished and equal rights given to all, that would no longer be the case. The duty to extirpate and destroy it, is admitted even by our DOCTORS OF DIVINITY. [5] Many copies of one section of it, beginning in paragraph 32, have been circulated online. 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. The4th of July is the first great fact in your nation's history the very ringbolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destinyPride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetualremembrance. He was fortunate to have been taught to read by his slave owner mistress, and he would go on to become one of the major literary figures of his time. 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. I will show you a man-drover. The Fugitive Slave Law makes mercy to them a crime; and bribes the judge who tries them. There is hope in the thought, and hope is much needed, under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon. That is a question Frederick Douglass posed 169 Julys ago in a speech to a group of abolitionists, one that's become perhaps his most famous. Rhetorical Analysis Of Harvey Fourth Of July. [4], Noted for its biting irony and bitter rhetoric, and acute textual analysis of the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Christian Bible, the speech is among the most widely known of all of Douglass's writings. Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? By that most foul and fiendish of all human decrees, the liberty and person of every man are put in peril. They hate all changes, but silver, gold and copper change! Standing, there, identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, 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! (1982). Follow the drove to New Orleans. That which is inhuman, cannot be divine! ROY: The event that were doing in Somerville puts pressure on whitewashed conceptions of the Fourth of July, as many people to this day still view it as a celebration of American food, fireworks, and freedom. 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. The accepted time with God and his cause is the ever-living now. One small step toward understanding gravity, Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. It is the antagonistic force in your government, the only thing that seriously disturbs and endangers your Union. He validates the feelings of injustice the Founders felt then juxtaposes their experiences with vivid descriptions of the harshness of slavery.[21]. It would, certainly, prove nothing, as to what part I might have taken, had I lived during the great controversy of 1776. Douglass, Frederick, ed. Not for thieves and robbers, enemies of society, merely, but for men guilty of no crime. $ 3.60. 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. Yea! 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. . In that speech, he cast the abolitionist movement as being engaged in a "War" against defenders of slavery. 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. Douglass also stresses the view that slaves and free Americans are equal in nature. Great Britain, and many other countries of that time, had already abolished slavery from its territories. He implored the Rochester, N.Y., audience to think about the ongoing oppression of Black Americans during a holiday celebrating freedom. Nevertheless, Douglass claims that this can change. He argues that the Constitution does not permit slavery, contrary to the claims of contemporary defenders of the institution. 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. (3) $3.99. 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. It is called (in contradistinction to the foreign slave-trade) the internal slave trade. It is, probably, called so, too, in order to divert from it the horror with which the foreign slave-trade is contemplated. 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. Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. Building off of this, Douglass criticizes the Fugitive Slave Act, holding that in this act, "slavery has been nationalized in its most horrible and revolting form." As the champions of oppressors, the chosen men of American theology have appearedmen, honored for their so-called piety, and their real learning. Is it at the gateway? The 'Address' may be had at this office, price ten cents, a single copy, or six dollars per hundred. 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. 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. What characteristics does he praise about them? 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? Long established customs of hurtful character could formerly fence themselves in, and do their evil work with social impunity. Americans! 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. He faults America for utter hypocrisy and betrayal of those values in maintaining the institution of slavery. Douglass' speech came just 11 years before Lincolns Emancipation Proclamation hitting a poignant point in American history through his targeting of the slave as a crucial figure in desperate need of independence. For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. when ye make many prayers, I will not hear. in preference to the gospel, as preached by those Divines! They have taught that man may, properly, be a slave; that the relation of master and slave is ordained of God; that to send back an escaped bondman to his master is clearly the duty of all the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ; and this horrible blasphemy is palmed off upon the world for Christianity.For my part, I would say, welcome infidelity! Easel Activity. This truth is not a doubtful one. We are met on the threshold of our efforts for the redemption of the slave, by the church and ministry of the country, in battle arrayed against us; and we are compelled to fight or flee. 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. [16] Additionally, it awarded $10 to a judge who sentenced an individual to return to enslavement, while awarding only $5 if the claim was dismissed. 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 of Him by whom the professed to he called to the ministry, deliberately taught us, against the example or the Hebrews and against the remonstrance of the Apostles, they teach that we ought to obey mans law before the law of God.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. 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? That point is conceded already. Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? Feeling themselves harshly and unjustly treated by the home government, your fathers, like men of honesty, and men of spirit, earnestly sought redress. With brave men there is always a remedy for oppression. 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! [16][17] Finally, the Act did not allow the accused individual of defending themselves in court. 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. 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. 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? To arrest it, to put an end to it, this nation keeps a squadron, at immense cost, on the coast of Africa. had I the ability, and could I reach the nations ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. 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. My business, if I have any here to-day, is with the present. There was, at that time, a grand slave mart kept at the head of Pratt Street, by Austin Woldfolk. His own testimony is nothing. speaking of it relatively, and positively, negatively, and affirmatively. Tell me citizens, WHERE, under the sun, you can witness a spectacle more fiendish and shocking. Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe. But, with that blindness which seems to be the unvarying characteristic of tyrants, since Pharaoh and his hosts were drowned in the Red Sea. Of this sort of change they are always strongly in favor. They, however, gradually flow back to the same old channel, and flow on as serenely as ever. They that can, may; I cannot. Douglass then returns to the topic of the founding of the United States. The sin of which it is guilty is one of omission as well as of commission. 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. 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. one of the most important speeches of the 19th century? It is neither. Your President, your Secretary of State, your lords, nobles, and ecclesiastics, enforce, as a duty you owe to your free and glorious country, and to your God, that you do this accursed thing. This page was last edited on 5 February 2023, at 19:31. [8] Frederick Douglass had moved to Rochester in 1847 in order to publish his newspaper The North Star. The eye of the reformer is met with angry flashes, portending disastrous times; but his heart may well beat lighter at the thought that America is young, and that she is still in the impressible stage of her existence. 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. Genius is the ultimate source of music knowledge, created by scholars like you who share facts and insight about the songs and artists they love. 5.0. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? when ye make many prayers, I will not hear. That bolt drawn, that chain broken, and all is lost. Keidrick Roy, the host of the virtual reading event. Douglass argues that religion is the center of the problem but also the main solution to it. Need I remind you that a similar thing is being done all over this country to-day? 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