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Frederick Douglass: July 4th Speech
Frederick
Douglass
The
Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro
Born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey to a slave mother and a white
father that he never knew, Frederick Douglass grew up to become an abolitionist leader. In addition, Douglass was the first black citizen to hold high rank in the
federal government: U.S. minister to Haiti.
On July 5, 1852, Douglass gave a speech at an event commemorating the
signing of the Declaration of Independence, held at Rochester, N.Y.'s Corinthian Hall.
Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic.
The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. They were great men, too Ñ great enough to give frame to a
great age. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. The point from which
I am compelled to view them is not, certainly, the most favorable; and yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less
than admiration. 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, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon
to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of
political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? 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?
Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative
answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. For
who is there so cold, that a nation's sympathy could not warm him? Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that
would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Who so stolid and selfish, that would not give his voice to swell
the hallelujahs of a nation's jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? I am not that man. In a
case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the "lame man leap as an hart."
But such is not the state of
the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of glorious anniversary!
Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are
not enjoyed in common. Ñ The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers,
is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This
Fourth July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. 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. Do you mean, citizens,
to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn you that it is dangerous
to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, towering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying
that nation in irrevocable ruin! 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. Yea! we wept when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the
midst thereof. 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. How can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? If I forget thee, 0 Jerusalem,
let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth."
Fellow-citizens,
above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are,
to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully 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!"
To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous
and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world. My subject, then, fellow-citizens, is American slavery.
I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slave's point of view. 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! 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. America.is false to the past, false to the
present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. 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 slavery Ñ the great sin and shame of America! "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. Would you argue more, an denounce less; would you persuade more, and rebuke
less; your cause would be much more likely to succeed." But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. What
point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need
light? Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? That point is conceded already. Nobody doubts it. The slaveholders
themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience
on the part of the slave. There are seventy-two 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 the same crimes will subject a white man to
the like punishment. What is this but the acknowledgment that the slave is a moral, intellectual, and responsible being? The
manhood of the slave is conceded. 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. 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. 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. 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 ciphering,
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 Christian's 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? that he is the rightful owner of his own body? You have already declared it. Must I argue the
wrongfulness of slavery? Is that a question for Republicans? 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?
How should I look to-day, in the presence of Amercans, dividing, and subdividing a discourse, to show that men have a natural
right to freedom? speaking of it relatively and positively, negatively and affirmatively. 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 burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their mast[e]rs?
Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, is wrong? No! I will not. I have better employment
for my time and strength than such arguments would imply.
What, then, remains to be argued? Is it that slavery is
not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? There is blasphemy in the thought. That
which is inhuman, cannot be divine! Who can reason on such a proposition? They that can, may; I cannot. The time for such
argument is passed.
At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability,
and could reach the nation's ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering
sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need
the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must
be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against
God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.
What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? 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.
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 denunciation 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 hypocrisy -- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace
a nation of savages.There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of
the 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....
...Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture
I have this day presented, of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country. There are forces in operation which
must inevitably work the downfall of slavery. "The arm of the Lord is not shortened," and the doom of slavery is certain.
I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. While drawing encouragement from "the Declaration of Independence," the
great principles it contains, and the genius of American Institutions, my spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies
of the age. Nations do not now stand in the same relation to each other that they did ages ago. 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 time was when such
could be done. Long established customs of hurtful character could formerly fence themselves in, and do their evil work with
social impunity. Knowledge was then confined and enjoyed by the privileged few, and the multitude walked on in mental darkness.
But a change has now come over the affairs of mankind. Walled cities and empires have become unfashionable. The arm of commerce
has borne away the gates of the strong city. Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe. It makes its pathway
over and under the sea, as well as on the earth. Wind, steam, and lightning are its chartered agents. Oceans no longer divide,
but link nations together. From Boston to London is now a holiday excursion. Space is comparatively annihilated. -- Thoughts
expressed on one side of the Atlantic are distinctly heard on the other.
The far off and almost fabulous Pacific rolls
in grandeur at our feet. The Celestial Empire, the mystery of ages, is being solved. The fiat of the Almighty, "Let there
be Light," has not yet spent its force. No abuse, no outrage whether in taste, sport or avarice, can now hide itself from
the all-pervading light. The iron shoe, and crippled foot of China must be seen in contrast with nature. Africa must rise
and put on her yet unwoven garment. 'Ethiopia, shall, stretch. out her hand unto Ood." In the fervent aspirations of William
Lloyd Garrison, I say, and let every heart join in saying it:
God speed the year of jubilee
The wide world o'er!
When from their galling chains set free,
Th' oppress'd shall vilely bend the knee,
And wear the yoke of tyranny
Like brutes no more.
That year will come, and freedom's reign,
To man his plundered rights again
Restore.
God speed the day when human blood
Shall cease to flow!
In every clime be understood,
The claims of human
brotherhood,
And each return for evil, good,
Not blow for blow;
That day will come all feuds to end,
And change
into a faithful friend
Each foe.
God speed the hour, the glorious hour,
When none on earth
Shall exercise
a lordly power,
Nor in a tyrant's presence cower;
But to all manhood's stature tower,
By equal birth!
That
hour will come, to each, to all,
And from his Prison-house, to thrall
Go forth.
Until that year, day, hour,
arrive,
With head, and heart, and hand I'll strive,
To break the rod, and rend the gyve,
The spoiler of his prey
deprive --
So witness Heaven!
And never from my chosen post,
Whate'er the peril or the cost,
Be driven.
Source: The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass, Volume II, Pre-Civil War Decade
1850-1860, Philip S. Foner, International Publishers Co., Inc., New York, 1950.
Recommended
Reading: Frederick Douglass and the Fourth of July. From Publishers Weekly: On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass gave a speech at a meeting sponsored by the Rochester
(N.Y.) Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society. The speech, and indeed the meeting itself, were contrived to provide a counter-celebration
to Independence Day. Speaker after speaker, Douglass among them, took aim at the cherished pieties of the nation: the memory
of the Revolution, the elusive ideal of liberty for all, and the country's moral and religious foundation. Continued below…
As NYU professor
Colaiaco (Socrates Against Athens) makes clear, Douglass's biting oratory on that occasion resonated loudly across a startled
country. "This Fourth of July is yours, not mine," he told his white listeners. "You may rejoice, I must mourn." Douglass's
remarks dove to the heart of the hypocrisy upon which the American nation had been founded. With incisive analysis and elegant
prose, Colaiaco explains the rhetorical atmosphere in which Douglass crafted and delivered his speech. More than one abolitionist
by then was rising up to call for a "second American Revolution," to fulfill the spirit of 1776's fine words. Douglass's eloquence
added to the sharpness of this clarion call, while also drawing a firm line between the romantic folklore and grim reality
of American liberty.
Related Reading:
Recommended Reading: The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (Barnes & Noble
Classics Series). Description: No book except perhaps
Uncle Tom’s Cabin had as powerful an impact on the abolitionist movement as Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.
But while Stowe wrote about imaginary characters, Douglass’s book is a record of his own remarkable life. Born a slave
in 1818 on a plantation in Maryland, Douglass taught himself
to read and write. In 1845, seven years after escaping to the North, he published Narrative, the first of three autobiographies.
Continued below.
This book calmly but dramatically recounts the horrors and the accomplishments of his early years—the daily,
casual brutality of the white masters; his painful efforts to educate himself; his decision to find freedom or die; and his
harrowing but successful escape. An astonishing orator and a skillful writer, Douglass became a newspaper editor, a political
activist, and an eloquent spokesperson for the civil rights of African Americans. He lived through the Civil War, the end
of slavery, and the beginning of segregation. He was celebrated internationally as the leading black intellectual of his day...and
his story still resonates. Narrative of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, by Frederick Douglass, is part of the Barnes
& Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including
new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes
& Noble Classics: New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars; Biographies of the authors; Chronologies
of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events; Footnotes and endnotes; Selective discussions of imitations,
parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work; Comments by other famous authors;
Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations; Bibliographies for further reading; Indices & Glossaries,
when appropriate. All editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations
of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical,
and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works.
Recommended Reading: The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery
Politics. Publishers Weekly: The perennial tension between principle and pragmatism in politics frames this engaging
account of two Civil War Era icons. Historian Oakes (Slavery and Freedom) charts the course by which Douglass and Lincoln,
initially far apart on the antislavery spectrum, gravitated toward each other. Lincoln began as a moderate who advocated banning
slavery in the territories while tolerating it in the South, rejected social equality for blacks and wanted to send freedmen
overseas—and wound up abolishing slavery outright and increasingly supporting black voting rights. Conversely, the abolitionist
firebrand Douglass moved from an impatient, self-marginalizing moral rectitude to a recognition of compromise, coalition building
and incremental goals as necessary steps forward in a democracy. Continued below...
Douglass's
views on race were essentially modern; the book is really a study through his eyes of the more complex figure of Lincoln.
Oakes lucidly explores how political realities and military necessity influenced Lincoln's
tortuous path to emancipation, and asks whether his often bigoted pronouncements represented real conviction or strategic
concessions to white racism. As Douglass shifts from denouncing Lincoln's foot-dragging to
revering his achievements, Oakes vividly conveys both the immense distance America
traveled to arrive at a more enlightened place and the fraught politics that brought it there. AWARDED FIVE STARS by americancivilwarhistory.org
Recommended
Reading: Frederick Douglass : Autobiographies : Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave / My Bondage
and My Freedom / Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (Library of America) (Hardcover: 1100 pages). Review From Library Journal: Douglass (1818-95), a former slave, rose to become
an abolitionist, writer, and orator. In this collection of his autobiographical writings, edited by Gates (humanities, Harvard Univ.), he
gives an extensive overview of his life. The work includes Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave
(1845); My Bondage and My Freedom (1855); and Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881). Continued below...
In Narrative,
Douglass comments on his birth, his parentage, his two masters, and the brutality of slavery he witnessed. In Bondage, he
reflects on his childhood, life on the plantation, and his runaway plot. Life and Times concludes the trilogy: it covers his
early life as a slave, his escape from bondage, and his connection with the antislavery movement. This massive volume containing
Douglass's seminal works is highly recommended for black history collections.
Recommended
Reading: The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (Dover Value Editions). Description: Raised as a plantation
slave, Douglass went on to become a writer, orator, and major participant in the struggle for African-American freedom and
equality. In this engrossing narrative he recounts early years of abuse; his dramatic escape to the North and eventual freedom,
abolitionist campaigns, and his crusade for full civil rights for former slaves.
Recommended
Reading: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, Written by Himself (Enriched Classics) (Mass Market Paperback). Description: Frederick Douglass's powerful
autobiographical account of life in bondage and his triumphant escape to freedom. EACH ENRICHED CLASSIC EDITION INCLUDES:
A concise introduction that gives readers important background information; A chronology of the author's life and work; A
timeline of significant events that provides the book's historical context; An outline of key themes and plot points to help
readers form their own interpretations; Detailed explanatory notes; Critical analysis, including contemporary and modern perspectives
on the work; Discussion questions to promote lively classroom and book group interaction; A list of recommended related books
and films to broaden the reader's experience. Continued below…
Enriched Classics
offer readers affordable editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and insightful commentary. The scholarship
provided in Enriched Classics enables readers to appreciate, understand, and enjoy the world's finest books to their full
potential.
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