frederick douglass speech transcriptarkansas stand your ground law explained

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 hypocrisy a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. The principles contained in that instrument are saving principles. No abuse, no outrage whether in taste, sport or avarice, can now hide itself from the all-pervading light. Frederick Douglass weeping, as she thinks of the mother from whom she has been torn! 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. that gash on her shoulder tells her to move on. I scout the idea that the question of the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of slavery is not a question for the people. Neither steam nor lightning had then been reduced to order and discipline. 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 freedom gained is yours; and you, therefore, may properly celebrate this anniversary. WebFrederick Douglass speech What to a Slave is the Fourth of July effectively argues against slavery. They hate all changes, but silver, gold and copper change! These rules are well established. Like our content? When the dogs in your street, 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 I will argue with you that the slave is a man. Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding. It is carried on in all the large towns and cities in one-half of this confederacy; and millions are pocketed every year, by dealers in this horrid traffic. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? speech was delivered on July 5, 1852 as an address to the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society in Rochester, New York. Before you read the speech you can follow these links to learn more about Douglasss life and the evolution of his thought in this period. Short bio of Frederick Douglass The Frederick Douglass Papers Library of Congress They who did so were accounted in their day, plotters of mischief, agitators and rebels, dangerous men. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. The cause of liberty may be stabbed by the men who glory in the deeds of your fathers. 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 ions, 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 masters? 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. 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.. I remember, also, that, as a people, Americans are remarkably familiar with all facts which make in their own favor. I scarcely need say, fellow-citizens, that my opinion of those measures fully accords with that of your fathers. All Rights Reserved. Frederick Douglass, circa 1879. Difference between Rittenhouse and McMichael-Bryan verdicts? Frederick Douglass delivered his famous speech What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? in 1852, drawing parallels between the Revolutionary War and the fight to abolish slavery. The charter of our liberties, which every citizen has a personal interest in understanding thoroughly. 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. 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 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. As noted here, that banquet was attended by prominent It was a startling idea, much more so, than we, at this distance of time, regard it. The hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed and its crimes against God and man must be denounced. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the lame man leap as an hart.. Fellow-citizens! It is not that pure and undefiled religion which is from above, and which is first pure, then peaceable, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits,without partiality, and without hypocrisy. But a religion which favors the rich against the poor; which exalts the proud above the humble; which divides mankind into two classes, tyrants and slaves; which says to the man in chains,stay there; and to the oppressor,oppress on; it is a religion which may be professed and enjoyed by all the robbers and enslavers of mankind; it makes God a respecter of persons, denies his fatherhood of the race, and tramples in the dust the great truth of the brotherhood of man. I lived on Philpot Street, Fells Point, Baltimore, and have watched from the wharves, the slave ships in the Basin, anchored from the shore, with their cargoes of human flesh, waiting for favorable winds to waft them down the Chesapeake. Yet they persevered. An American judge gets ten dollars for every victim he consigns to slavery, and five, when he fails to do so. You have already declared it. I will not equivocate. 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.. You may rejoice. Ever ready to drink, to treat, and to gamble. Feeling themselves harshly and unjustly treated by the home government, your fathers, like men of honesty, and men of spirit, earnestly sought redress. Transcripts & captions for a better media workflow. This certainly sounds large, and out of the common way, for it is true that I have often had the privilege to speak in this beautiful Hall, and to address many who now honor me with their presence. 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. I shall not be charged with slandering Americans, if I say I think the American side of any question may be safely left in American hands. 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, andlet the weight of twenty millions crush and destroy it forever! I have better employments for my time and strength than such arguments would imply. 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, 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.. that it should be so; yet so it is. Now, there are certain rules of interpretation, for the proper understanding of all legal instruments. 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. Sign up for NewsOne's email newsletter! That, which is inhuman cannot be divine. For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. Easily integrate Rev using our robust APIs to start building your product quickly. "What to the Slave is the 4th of July?" Speech Transcript we wept when we remembered Zion. It is a fact, that whatever makes for the wealth or for the reputation of Americans, and can be had cheap! Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who 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. A Plea for Free Speech in Boston (1860) | Constitution Center Of this sort of change they are always strongly in favor. Further, if this demand were not complied with, another Scotland would be added to the history of religious liberty, and the stern old Covenanters would be thrown into the shade. To him, your celebration is a sham, your boasted Liberty, an unholy license, your national greatness, swelling vanity. Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. Cast one glance, if you please, upon that young mother, whose shoulders are bare to the scorching sun, her briny tears falling on the brow of the babe in her arms. The fate of many a slave has depended upon the turn of a single card; and many a child has been snatched from the arms of its mother by bargains arranged in a state of brutal drunkenness. To say now that America was right, and England wrong, is exceedingly easy. 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 unlike the politicians of an hour! I repeat, I am glad this is so. Such a declaration of agreement on my part would not be worth much to anybody. Industry-leading accurate legal transcription to ensure you dont miss a statement. The far off and almost fabulous Pacific rolls in grandeur at our feet. Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. And the lame man leap as an heart, but such is not the case. But I fancy, I hear some of my audience say it is just in this circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression upon the public mind. Frederick Douglass: (06:03) I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies. The slaveholders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. The 4th of July is the first great fact in your nations history the very ring-bolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny. It is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. Oration by Frederick Douglass, delivered on the occasion of the Morel is right that the 1876 speech by Frederick Douglass is remarkable and masterful. Frederick Douglass's, What To the Slave Is the Fourth of Who can reason on such a proposition? 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 and question and to denounce with all the emphasis I can command everything that serves to perpetuate slavery, the great sin and shame of America. In the text it states, above all, confessing and worshipping the Christian God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave- we are called upon to prove that we are men? (Douglas 763). The sunlight that brought life and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me. Should I seem at ease, my appearance would much misrepresent me. Is that a question for Republicans? Nobody doubts it. For my part, I would say, welcome infidelity! 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? 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! Is that a question for Republicans? Mark the sad procession, as it moves wearily along, and the inhuman wretch who drives them. No, I will not. Frederick Douglass: (10:31) Her speed had faltered under the weight of her child and her chains! WebFrederick Douglass, July 5, 1852 INTRODUCTION (Exordium) 1. Is it not astonishing that while we are plowing, planting and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metal 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 we are engaged in all the enterprises, common to other men, digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific feeding sheep and cattle on the hillside, living, moving, acting, thinking, planting, living in families as husbands, wives, and children, and above all confessing and worshiping the Christian God and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. Section 107, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. There were then no means of concert and combination, such as exist now. Washington could not die till he had broken the chains of his slaves. Banners and pennants wave exultingly on the breeze. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? It makes its pathway over and under the sea, as well as on the earth. During The crack you heard, was the sound of the slave-whip; the scream you heard, was from the woman you saw with the babe. Friends and citizens, I need not enter further into the causes which led to this anniversary. 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. By an act of the American Congress, not yet two years old, slavery has been nationalized in its most horrible and revolting form. Speech Transcript Frederick Douglass: (06:44) Speech Tell me citizens, WHERE, under the sun, you can witness a spectacle more fiendish and shocking. "The Lessons of the Hour" Speech by Frederick Douglass What to the Slave is the 4th of July? Speech Transcript by Frederick Douglass, Congressional Testimony & Hearing Transcripts. 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 cyphering, 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 Christians God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave, we are called upon to prove that we are men! 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! It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has 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. 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. They were quiet men; but they did not shrink from agitating against oppression. The duty to extirpate and destroy it, is admitted even by our DOCTORS OF DIVINITY. All Rights Reserved. There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, who does not know that slavery is wrong for him. There is blasphemy in the thought. That point is conceded already. 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. 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. The causes which led to the separation of the colonies from the British crown have never lacked for a tongue. From the round top of your ship of state, dark and threatening clouds may be seen. 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! 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. 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 If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. Thu 5 Jul 2018 07.00 EDT Last modified on Wed 24 Jul 2019 11.58 EDT. America is false to the past, false to the present and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. See, too, that girl of thirteen, weeping, yes! And instead of being the honest men I have before declared them to be, they were the veriest imposters that ever practiced on mankind. WebBoth anniversaries remind us that the fight for independence and equality did not end in the 18th century - a theme highlighted in Douglass speech. Your lawmakers have commanded all good citizens to engage in this hellish sport. 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! With little experience and with less learning, I have been able to throw my thoughts hastily and imperfectly together; and The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, not by me. Yea! Discover why Rev is the #1 speech-to-text service in the world. 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.. I was born amid such sights and scenes. And while slavery has long been abolished and outlawed, the sentiment behind the address still applies in many unfortunate ways when it comes to the overall Black experience in America. 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. The arm of the Lord is not shortened, and the doom of slavery is certain. They inhabit all our Southern States. 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? This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. 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? They form the staple of your national poetry and eloquence. Your cause would be much more likely to succeed. A speech given at Rochester, New York, July 5, 1852 . The right of the hunter to his prey stands superior to the right of marriage, and toallrights in this republic, the rights of God included! What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible being? What was possible for him, he sincerely believed was possible for any man who was willing to work hard. 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 the great sin and shame of America! 1883 Speech by Frederick Douglass - accessible-archives.com Frederick Douglass Read the full transcript here. Of this fundamental work, this day is the anniversary. It was demanded, in the name of humanity, and according to the law of the living God. 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. The fiat of the Almighty, Let there be Light, has not yet spent its force. The Fugitive SlaveLawmakes mercy to them a crime; and bribes the judge who tries them. Fromwhat quarter, I beg to know, has proceeded a fire so deadly upon our ranks, during the last two years, as from the Northern pulpit? The Sharps, the Clarksons, the Wilberforces, the Buxtons, and Burchells and the Knibbs, were alike famous for their piety, and for their philanthropy. The little experience I have had in addressing public meetings, in country schoolhouses, avails me nothing on the present occasion. 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. But the church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of the slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors. Your fathers were wise men, and if they did not go mad, they became restive under this treatment. 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. 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. Nations do not now stand in the same relation to each other that they did ages ago. With brave men there is always a remedy for oppression. Our Composite Nation: Frederick Douglass America Your fathers esteemed the English Government as the home government; and England as the fatherland. Speech 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. Frederick Douglass, Fifth of July speech (1852) You have no right to enjoy a childs share in the labor of your fathers, unless your children are to be blest by your labors. They succeeded; and to-day you reap the fruits of their success. Get a weekly digest of the weeks most important transcripts in your inbox. See this drove sold and separated forever; and never forget the deep, sad sobs that arose from that scattered multitude. WebIn the late 1860sat a moment of great hope for the promise of equality under the lawthe famed orator and once-enslaved abolitionist Frederick Douglass took his Our Composite Nation speech on the road to argue for a plural American democracy. Resolved, That these united colonies are, and of right, ought to be free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown; and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, dissolved.. This, for the purpose of this celebration, is the 4th of July. His death, according to Douglass was not only tragic, but also prevented recently freed slaves and African Americans from gaining the ear of wise and well-intentioned leader. Born to an enslaved family in 1818, Frederick Douglass never knew his actual birthday, a fact not uncommon for those enslaved. It is fashionable to do so; but there was a time when to pronounce against England, and in favor of the cause of the colonies, tried mens souls. It destroys your moral power abroad; it corrupts your politicians at home. He is a bird for the sportsmans gun. The accepted time with God and his cause is the ever-living now. I have detained my audience entirely too long already. A RESTful API to access Revs workforce of fast, high quality transcriptionists and captioners. According to this fact, you are, even now, only in the beginning of your national career, still lingering in the period of childhood. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak. 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. It would, certainly, prove nothing, as to what part I might have taken, had I lived during the great controversy of 1776. Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? What have I, or those I represent to do with your national independence. Is slavery among them? Web"The Lessons of the Hour" Speech by Frederick Douglass, January 9, 1894 Friends and Fellow Citizens : No man should come before an audience like the one by whose presence I am now honored, without a noble object and a fixed and earnest purpose. Extend your content reach and maximize your engagement rates. It saps the foundation of religion; it makes your name a hissing, and a bye-word to a mocking earth. Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? Heat and sorrow have nearly consumed their strength; suddenly you hear a quick snap, like the discharge of a rifle; the fetters clank, and the chain rattles simultaneously; your ears are saluted with a scream, that seems to have torn its way to the center of your soul! They showed forbearance; but that they knew its limits. To all inspiring motives, to noble deeds which can be gained from the past, we are welcome. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost. 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. That point is conceded already. They were great in their day and generation. 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 and write. 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. Is it at the gateway? I trust, however, that mine will not be so considered. I will show you a man-drover. WebFrederick Douglass, July 5, 1852 INTRODUCTION (Exordium) 1. Frederick Douglass's, What To the Slave Is the Fourth of

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