They may also rise in wrath and fury, and bear away, on their angry waves, the accumulated wealth of years of toil and hardship. Space is comparatively annihilated. The cause of liberty may be stabbed by the men who glory in the deeds of your fathers. Easel Activity. It is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. We need individual events like reading Douglass, but we also need to be thinking about ways to extend this conversation over the long term. The far off and almost fabulous Pacific rolls in grandeur at our feet. In order to put an end to it, some of these last have consented that their colored brethren (nominally free) should leave this country, and establish themselves on the western coast of Africa! 2. This is the inevitable conclusion, and from it there is no escape. 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. 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?. A major theme of the speech is how America is not living up to its proclaimed beliefs. 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? 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. 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. Is that a question for Republicans? 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. Hear his savage yells and his blood-chilling oaths, as he hurries on his affrighted captives! Yea! It was demanded, in the name of humanity, and according to the law of the living God. The speech "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" was delivered in the decade preceding the American Civil War, which lasted from 1861 to 1865 and achieved the abolition of slavery. To the slave, Douglass tells the audience, "your 4th of July is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license [for enslaving blacks] . You shed tears over fallen Hungary, and make the sad story of her wrongs the theme of your poets, statesmen and orators, till your gallant sons are ready to fly to arms to vindicate her cause against her oppressors; but, in regard to the ten thousand wrongs of the American slave, you would enforce the strictest silence, and would hail him as an enemy of the nation who dares to make those wrongs the subject of public discourse! Attend the auction; see men examined like horses; see the forms of women rudely and brutally exposed to the shocking gaze of American slave-buyers. For who is there so cold, that a nations sympathy could not warm him? When a child, my soul was often pierced with a sense of its horrors. 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. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. 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 would, certainly, prove nothing, as to what part I might have taken, had I lived during the great controversy of 1776. we wept when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. Douglass argues that religion is the center of the problem but also the main solution to it. ROY: The better we get to know the people that we live with, that we work around, that we see at the coffee shop, and the more we talk about these important racial issues with one another, the easier it will be to heal our divided communities. 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. Need I remind you that a similar thing is being done all over this country to-day? America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. During the Civil War, Douglass said that since Massachusetts had been the first state to join the Patriot cause during the American Revolutionary War, black men should go to Massachusetts to enlist in the Union Army. What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? He faults America for utter hypocrisy and betrayal of those values in maintaining the institution of slavery. I do not remember ever to have appeared as a speaker before any assembly more. your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery." Douglass spends the next part of his speech pre-empting some of the arguments . To find out what elements make the speech 'What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?' Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slaverythe great sin and shame of America! 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 right of the hunter to his prey stands superior to the right of marriage, and to all rights in this republic, the rights of God included! Frederick Douglass, ca 1855, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Students also viewed Kate Harris Date Published September 28, 2016 Last Modified November 14, 2021 Description. He thinks they were extremely intelligent, and the thinks it is admirable that when they realized they were oppressed by Britain, they rebelled. One of the biggest challenges we face in our present moment is building sustainable movements that fundamentally change peoples minds about race and racism. 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. Her speed had faltered under the weight of her child and her chains! They that can, may; I cannot. According to Douglass, these inconsistencies have made the United States the object of mockery and often contempt among the various nations of the world. 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." Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? Is it at the gateway? These gentlemen have, as I think, fully and clearly vindicated the Constitution from any design to support slavery for an hour.Fellow-citizens! Three score years and ten is the allotted time for individual men; but nations number their years by thousands. The little experience I have had in addressing public meetings, in country schoolhouses, avails me nothing on the present occasion. 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? I was glad to find one who sympathized with me in my horror.Fellow-citizens, this murderous traffic is, to-day, in active operation in this boasted republic. The Fugitive Slave Law makes mercy to them a crime; and bribes the judge who tries them. Creative people have bypassed gatekeepers for centuries to distribute what they wanted to share so badly. They find common ground in Houghton Library exhibition. Douglass details the hardships past Americans once endured when they were members of British colonies and validates their feelings of ill treatment. There should be no shoulder that does not bear the burden of the government. He had a prophetic vision for the future that he was always trying to work toward. Random House. But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. . What to the American slave is your Fourth of July? There is consolation in the thought that America is young. Tell me citizens, WHERE, under the sun, you can witness a spectacle more fiendish and shocking. In July of 1852, Frederick Douglass prepares a speech known as The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro. An American judge gets ten dollars for every victim he con signs to slavery, and five, when he fails to do so. During the 1850's, the Fourth of July served as a reminder of the many horrors and injustices in the world. It is the antagonistic force in your government, the only thing that seriously disturbs and endangers your Union. Long established customs of hurtful character could formerly fence themselves in, and do their evil work with social impunity. 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. The minister of American justice is bound by the law to hear but one side; and that side, is the side of the oppressor. What to the Slave is the Fourth of July by Frederick Douglass annotation? official permission or approval. How can we sing the Lords song in a strange land? Over 150,000 persons were sold between 1820 and 1830, and over 300,000 were sold between 1850 and 1860.[15]. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, lowering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin! Mark the sad procession, as it moves wearily along, and the inhuman wretch who drives them. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth. What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? Yea! Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. You know what is a swine-drover? The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. by Frederick Douglass 1852 11th Grade Lexile: 1140 Font Size Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) was an African American social reformer, orator, and writer. Seventy-six years, though a good old age for a man, is but a mere speck in the life of a nation. From what quarter, I beg to know, has proceeded a fire so deadly upon our ranks, during the last two years, as from the Northern pulpit? Initially mentored by William Lloyd Garrison, Douglass 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. Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to. 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. There is not time now to argue the constitutional question at length nor have I the ability to discuss it as it ought to be discussed. one of the most important speeches of the 19th century? The speech notes the contradiction of the national ethos of United States and the way enslaved persons are treated. 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. [20]:344. To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding.There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, that does not know that slavery is wrong for him.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 bum their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? 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.Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, 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.Take the American slave-trade, which, we are told by the papers, is especially prosperous just now. nor the perfect gage I think I have of Corinthian Hall, the slave plantation, from which I escaped, and trusting to your patient and generous indulgence, I will proceed to lay them before you, This, for the purpose of this celebration, is the 4th of July. He describes the legislation as "tyrannical," and believes that it is in "violation of justice.". I am not that man. Ossie DavisA Voice Ringing O'er the Gale! The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. He argues that the Constitution does not permit slavery, contrary to the claims of contemporary defenders of the institution. 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? These ministers make religion a cold and flinty-hearted thing, having neither principles of right action, nor bowels of compassion. 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. "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. And racism. [ 15 ] problem but also the main solution it., though a good old age for a man, is your of! Child, my soul was often pierced with a sense of its horrors thought that America is not that! 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what to the slave is the fourth of july annotation