From the Potomac to the Delaware was a journey of many days. What? 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! These ministers make religion a cold and flinty-hearted thing, having neither principles of right action, nor bowels of compassion. How unlike the politicians of an hour! These rules are well established. Ethiopia shall stretch out her hand unto God. In the fervent aspirations of William Lloyd Garrison, I say, and let every heart join in saying it: Th oppressd shall vilely bend the knee. I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the ring-bolt to the chain of your nations destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation Babylon, whose crimes towering up to heaven with thrown down by the breadth of the almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin. 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. They inhabit all our Southern States. 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? there is no matter in respect to which, the people of the North have allowed themselves to be so ruinously imposed upon, as that of the pro-slavery character of the Constitution. But a still more inhuman, disgraceful, and scandalous state of things remains to be presented. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. Fellow-citizens; above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! You invite to your shores fugitives of oppression from abroad, honor them with banquets, greet them with ovations, cheer them, toast them, salute them, protect them, and pour out your money to them like water; but the fugitives from your own land you advertise, hunt, arrest, shoot and kill. 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. When you can point to any such laws, in reference to the beasts of the field, then I may consent to argue the manhood of the slave. For my part, I would say, welcome infidelity! Frederick Douglass Read the full transcript here. If I do forget, if I do not 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. Let this damning fact be perpetually told. They have all been taught in your common schools, narrated at your firesides, unfolded from your pulpits, and thundered from your legislative halls, and are as familiar to you as household words. There are illustrations of it near and remote, ancient and modern. You live and must die, and you must do your work. Under Title 17 U.S.C. 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 was, Milloy continued, a critique of a nation that claimed to hold dear the principles of freedom, justice and equality even as it enslaved black people.. My business, if I have any here today, is with the present. As the sheet anchor takes a firmer hold, when the ship is tossed by the storm, so did the cause of your fathers grow stronger, as it breasted the chilling blasts of kingly displeasure. No nation can now shut itself up from the surrounding world, and trot round in the same old path of its fathers without interference. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. 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. The Bible addresses all such persons as scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, who pay tithe ofmint, anise,andcumin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith.. Of this sort of change they are always strongly in favor. 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? Oh! 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. Albert Barnes but uttered what the common sense of every man at all observant of the actual state of the case will receive as truth, when he declared that There is no power out of the church that could sustain slavery an hour, if it were not sustained in it.. Now, there are certain rules of interpretation, for the proper understanding of all legal instruments. Behold the practical operation of this internal slave-trade, the American slave-trade, sustained by American politics and America religion. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The Best Speech-to-Text Solution for Your Business Learn how Rev fits into your businesses workflow. The fact is, ladies and gentlemen, the distance between this platform and the slave plantation, from which I escaped, is considerable and the difficulties to be overcome in getting from the latter to the former, are by no means slight. Make your content more accessible to people with disabilities. 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. By an act of the American Congress, not yet two years old, slavery has been nationalized in its most horrible and revolting form. That is a branch of knowledge in which you feel, perhaps, a much deeper interest than your speaker. It destroys your moral power abroad; it corrupts your politicians at home. Transcript Descendants of Frederick Douglass read excerpts from one of his most famous speeches: What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? 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. An American judge gets ten dollars for every victim he consigns to slavery, and five, when he fails to do so. When a sufficient number have been collected here, a ship is chartered, for the purpose of conveying the forlorn crew to Mobile, or to New Orleans. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost. I will not. With little experience and with less learning, I have been able to throw my thoughts hastily and imperfectly together; and 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. 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. By that act, Mason and Dixons line has been obliterated; New York has become as Virginia; and the power to hold, hunt, and sell men, women, and children as slaves remains no longer a mere state institution, but is now an institution of the whole United States. Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetual remembrance. A general shout would go up from the church, demanding repeal, repeal, instant repeal! What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? It esteems sacrifice above mercy; psalm-singing above right doing; solemn meetings above practical righteousness. WebCelebrating 200 years of Frederick Douglass. Frederick Douglass: (03:37) The sunlight that brought life and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me. I have better employment for my time and strength than such arguments would imply. It carries your minds back to the day, and to the act of your great deliverance; and to the signs, and to the wonders, associated with that act, and that day. Discover why Rev is the #1 speech-to-text service in the world. 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 They convert the very name of religion into an engine of tyranny, and barbarous cruelty, and serve to confirm more infidels, in this age, than all the infidel writings of Thomas Paine, Voltaire, and Bolingbroke, put together, have done! 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. 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. Yet they persevered. 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. The text of Frederick Douglasss most famous speech, given in 1852, What, to a slave, is the Fourth of July? A chapter describing Douglasss early encounters with abolitionists, from his autobiography My Bondage and My Freedom, 1857. The blessings in which you this day rejoice are not enjoyed in common. This truth is not a doubtful one. They were peace men; but they preferred revolution to peaceful submission to bondage. How should I look today in the presence of Americans dividing and subdividing, a discourse to show that men have a natural right to freedom speaking of it, relatively and positively, negatively and affirmatively? And the lame man leap as an heart, but such is not the case. WebIn December 1860, the great American orator and former slave Frederick Douglass delivered one of his finest speeches, A Plea for Free Speech in Boston. In it, he boldly declared that liberty is meaningless where the right to utter ones thoughts and Towards the end of Your fathers esteemed the English Government as the home government; and England as the fatherland. That point is conceded already. In a very telling sign, the fateful words of Frederick Douglass from a speech he delivered 170 years ago still resonate very much in 2022 as Black people in America continue the fight for the same kind of equality that the legendary abolitionist was demanding back in the mid-19th century.