frederick douglass speech transcript frederick douglass speech transcript

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, 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 masters? Where these go, may also go the merciless slave-hunter. 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. R. R. Raymond) on the platform, are shining examples; and let me say further, that upon these men lies the duty to inspire our ranks with high religious faith and zeal, and to cheer us on in the great mission of the slaves redemption from his chains. 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. In their admiration of liberty, they lost sight of all other interests. Their conduct was wholly unexceptionable. Cling to this day cling to it, and to its principles, with the grasp of a storm-tossed mariner to a spar at midnight. No! Add English on-screen subtitles for videos. The questions are designed to provoke thought and guide the students through the document. At a time like this, scorching irony not convincing argument is needed. Calculate how much it costs to transcribe, caption, or subtitle your content. Frederick Douglass: (05:02) 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. What have I, or those I represent to do with your national independence. Then, I dare to affirm, notwithstanding all I have said before, your fathers stooped, basely stooped. Oh, had I, the ability, and could I reach the nations ear, I would today pour out a fiery steam of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. 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. Should I seem at ease, my appearance would much misrepresent me. 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). To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding. The manhood of the slave is conceded. A RESTful API to access Revs workforce of fast, high quality transcriptionists and captioners. The causes which led to the separation of the colonies from the British crown have never lacked for a tongue. They are food for the cotton-field, and the deadly sugar-mill. I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people! Many of you understand them better than I do. Is a matter, the set with great difficulty involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard to understand? To say now that America was right, and England wrong, is exceedingly easy. Copyright 2023 Interactive One, LLC. Need I remind you that a similar thing is being done all over this country to-day? It is a slander upon their memory, at least, so I believe. Is slavery among them? It is neither. 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. Some of these have had wives and children, dependent on them for bread; but of this, no account was made. Yea! It esteems sacrifice above mercy; psalm-singing above right doing; solemn meetings above practical righteousness. In prosecuting the anti-slavery enterprise, we have been asked to spare the church, to spare the ministry; buthow, we ask, could such a thing be done? From the slave prison to the ship, they are usually driven in the darkness of night; for since the antislavery agitation, a certain caution is observed. 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 sunlight that brought life and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me. 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! I am not that man. This is a primary source reading analysis of Frederick Douglass' famous speech. You have no right to wear out and waste the hard-earned fame of your fathers to cover your indolence. You boast of your love of liberty, your superior civilization, and your pure Christianity, while the whole political power of the nation (as embodied in the two great political parties), is solemnly pledged to support and perpetuate the enslavement of three millions of your countrymen. It is a religion for oppressors, tyrants, man-stealers, andthugs. Nobody doubts it. WebIn this speech, Frederick Douglass reflected on how the outpouring of joy at the conclusion of the Civil War turned to mourning with Lincolns assassination. You discourse eloquently on the dignity of labor; yet, you sustain a system which, in its very essence, casts a stigma upon labor. Under these, and innumerable other disadvantages, your fathers declared for liberty and independence and triumphed. He who will, intelligently, lay down his life for his country, is a man whom it is not in human nature to despise. I doubt if there be another nation on the globe, having the brass and the baseness to put such a law on the statute-book. It was fashionable, hundreds of years ago, for the children of Jacob to boast, we have Abraham to our father, when they had long lost Abrahams faith and spirit. Frederick Douglass thought that such rationalizations were crap, and he had the right to think so. They are plain, common-sense rules, such as you and I, and all of us, can understand and apply, without having passed years in the study of law. Yet his monument is built up by the price of human blood, and the traders in the bodies and souls of men shout We have Washington toour father. Alas! The minister of American justice is bound by the law to hear butoneside; andthatside, is the side of the oppressor. All Rights Reserved. Frederick Douglass thought that such rationalizations were crap, and he had the right to think so. be warned! In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak. Douglass views the monument and the day's ceremonies as reflecting honor upon African You can bare your bosom to the storm of British artillery to throw off a threepenny tax on tea; and yet wring the last hard-earned farthing from the grasp of the black laborers of your country. 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? 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 No abuse, no outrage whether in taste, sport or avarice, can now hide itself from the all-pervading light. Were the nation older, the patriots heart might be sadder, and the reformers brow heavier. Frederick Douglass: (07:35) Thu 5 Jul 2018 07.00 EDT Last modified on Wed 24 Jul 2019 11.58 EDT. It has made itself the bulwark of American slavery, and the shield of American slave-hunters. The slave holders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. I scarcely need say, fellow-citizens, that my opinion of those measures fully accords with that of your fathers. We are called upon to prove that we are men. You have already declared it. Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, iswrong? The drove moves tardily. Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The testimony of Senator Breese, Lewis Cass, and many others that might be named, who are everywhere esteemed as sound lawyers, so regard the constitution. Citizens, your fathers made good that resolution. These gentlemen have, as I think, fully and clearly vindicated the Constitution from any design to support slavery for an hour. The most accurate AI-powered transcription on the market. I scout the idea that the question of the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of slavery is not a question for the people. How circumspect, exact and proportionate were all their movements! What, then, remains to be argued? Extend your content reach and maximize your engagement rates. I remember, also, that, as a people, Americans are remarkably familiar with all facts which make in their own favor. There are 72 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 these same crimes will subject a white man to like punishment. The style and title of your sovereign people (in which you now glory) was not then born. They believed in order; but not in the order of tyranny. Its future might be shrouded in gloom, and the hope of its prophets go out in sorrow. They that can, may; I cannot. Your cause would be much more likely to succeed. Fellow-citizens; above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! Long established customs of hurtful character could formerly fence themselves in, and do their evil work with social impunity. The cause of liberty may be stabbed by the men who glory in the deeds of your fathers. You profess to believe that, of one blood, God made all nations of men to dwell on the face of all the earth, and hath commanded all men, everywhere to love one another; yet you notoriously hate, (and glory in your hatred), all men whose skins are not colored like your own. What was possible for him, he sincerely believed was possible for any man who was willing to work hard. Behold the practical operation of this internal slave-trade, the American slave-trade, sustained by American politics and America religion. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. Douglass gave this speech to a group of abolitionists 168 years ago. His agents were sent into every town and county in Maryland, announcing their arrival, through the papers, and on flaming hand-bills, headed CASH FOR NEGROES. There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, who does not know that slavery is wrong for him. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery. Its quite a remarkable speech as Douglass in a way reenacts his own journey in appreciation for the work that Lincoln did, not just for blacks, but for whites in this country. Yea! The time for such argument is past. The Sharps, the Clarksons, the Wilberforces, the Buxtons, and Burchells and the Knibbs, were alike famous for their piety, and for their philanthropy. They may also rise in wrath and fury, and bear away, on their angry waves, the accumulated wealth of years of toil and hardship. Morel is right that the 1876 speech by Frederick Douglass is remarkable and masterful. Let it be thundered around the world, that, in tyrant-killing, king-hating, people-loving, democratic, Christian America, the seats of justice are filled with judges, who hold their offices under an open and palpablebribe, and are bound, in deciding in the case of a mans liberty,hear only his accusers! No nation can now shut itself up from the surrounding world, and trot round in the same old path of its fathers without interference. Do you mean citizens to mock me by asking me to speak today? 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. Everywhere, in this country, it is safe to speak of this foreign slave-trade, as a most inhuman traffic, opposed alike to the laws of God and of man. 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. I will not. This, however, did not answer the purpose. Speech Transcript They were peace men; but they preferred revolution to peaceful submission to bondage. 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. There, the question of emancipation was a high religious question. He mentions the fact to show that slavery is in no danger. According to this fact, you are, even now, only in the beginning of your national career, still lingering in the period of childhood. 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.. 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. The charter of our liberties, which every citizen has a personal interest in understanding thoroughly. your republican politics, not less than your republican religion, are flagrantly inconsistent. Americans! They petitioned and remonstrated; they did so in a decorous, respectful, and loyal manner. You may rejoice. Get a weekly digest of the weeks most important transcripts in your inbox. 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. His own testimony is nothing. 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. They, that can, may. Not for thieves and robbers, enemies of society, merely, but for men guilty of no crime. To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs and to chime in with the popular theme would be treason most sacrilegious and shocking and would make me a reproach before God and the world. Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience nor grace my speech with any high sounding exordium. Fellow-citizens! Frederick Douglass: (06:44) Racist Ex-University Of Kentucky 'Karen' Sophia Rosing Is Charged For Assaulting Black Student. Space is comparatively annihilated. They hate all changes, but silver, gold and copper change! You will not, therefore, be surprised, if in what I have to say I evince no elaborate preparation, nor grace my speech with any high sounding exordium. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. I will not excuse. This Fourth [of] July isyours, notmine. 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. 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. Now, take the Constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. It was demanded, in the name of humanity, and according to the law of the living God. Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? Great streams are not easily turned from channels, worn deep in the course of ages. 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. There I see the tenderest ties ruthlessly broken, to gratify the lust, caprice and rapacity of the buyers and sellers of men. From police shootings to the wage gap to crippling stereotypes (and everything in between), there are too many parallels today with what Douglass described in his speech to white America, including this relevant line: This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. In glaring violation of justice, in shameless disregard of the forms of administering law, in cunning arrangement to entrap the defenseless, and in diabolical intent, this Fugitive Slave Law stands alone in the annals of tyrannical legislation. What? The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. They strip the love of God of its beauty, and leave the throng of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form. In a final celebratory post for Black History Month 2023, it is worth returning to the 1883 Douglass Banquet. 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. Banners and pennants wave exultingly on the breeze. Noble men may be found, scattered all over these Northern States, of whom Henry Ward Beecher of Brooklyn, Samuel J. That I am here to-day is, to me, a matter of astonishment as well as of gratitude. 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. 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. Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to those questions. I say it with a sad sense of disparity between us. See this drove sold and separated forever; and never forget the deep, sad sobs that arose from that scattered multitude. Try Rev and save time transcribing, captioning, and subtitling. The Fugitive SlaveLawmakes mercy to them a crime; and bribes the judge who tries them. Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has stronger nerves than I have. Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. And the conscience of the nation must be roused. To me the American slave-trade is a terrible reality. There, see the old man, with locks thinned and gray. Let this damning fact be perpetually told. Read its preamble, consider its purposes. I am glad, fellow-citizens, that your nation is so young. 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. Juneteenth Reading List: 10 Books To Learn More About Black Independence Day, Your email will be shared with newsone.com and subject to its, The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro address before an audience, at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York, on July 5, 1852, he was issuing , a scathing indictment of American hypocrisy, Washington Post columnist Courtland Milloy, . Is it at the gateway? I leave, therefore, the great deeds of your fathers to other gentlemen whose claim to have been regularly descended will be less likely to be disputed than mine! 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. The fiat of the Almighty, Let there be Light, has not yet spent its force. 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. 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? Discover why Rev is the #1 speech-to-text service in the world. But I differ from those who charge this baseness on the framers of the Constitution of the United States. Ever ready to drink, to treat, and to gamble. You have already declared it. Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has A feeling has crept over me, quite unfavorable to the exercise of my limited powers of speech. My subject, then fellow-citizens, is AMERICAN SLAVERY. In the summer of 2020, the U.S. commemorated Independence Day amid nationwide 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! On the other hand it will be found to contain principles and purposes, entirely hostile to the existence of slavery. 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. 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! 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. At some future period I will gladly avail myself of an opportunity to give this subject a full and fair discussion. A general shout would go up from the church, demanding repeal, repeal, instant repeal! The far off and almost fabulous Pacific rolls in grandeur at our feet. Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) was a social reformer and advocate, abolitionist, orator, writer, minister, and statesman. Hear his savage yells and his blood-chilling oaths, as he hurries on his affrighted captives! You were under the British Crown. 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. The time was when such could be done. When Douglass delivered his famous The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro address before an audience at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York, on July 5, 1852, he was issuing a scathing indictment of American hypocrisy, Washington Post columnist Courtland Milloy reminded readers. There was, at that time, a grand slave mart kept at the head of Pratt Street, by Austin Woldfolk. 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.. 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. They inhabit all our Southern States. Ex-Vice-President Dallas tells us that the Constitution is an object to which no American mind can be too attentive, and no American heart too devoted. That which is inhuman, cannot be divine! we wept when we remembered Zion. Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. For 186 years this doctrine of national independence has shaken the globeand it remains the most powerful force anywhere in the world today. They showed forbearance; but that they knew its limits. 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. They who did so were accounted in their day, plotters of mischief, agitators and rebels, dangerous men. The arm of the Lord is not shortened, and the doom of slavery is certain. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth. By an act of the American Congress, not yet two years old, slavery has been nationalized in its most horrible and revolting form. Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? It saps the foundation of religion; it makes your name a hissing, and a bye-word to a mocking earth. Walled cities and empires have become unfashionable. It was a startling idea, much more so, than we, at this distance of time, regard it. 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