what to the slave is the fourth of july annotationwhat to the slave is the fourth of july annotation

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. That people contented themselves under the shadow of Abrahams great name, while they repudiated the deeds which made his name great. How digital misinformation may keep you from a good nights sleep, Study finds surgical patients with addiction issues may be at greater risk for complications, including sudden cardiac death after anesthesia, Khalil Gibran Muhammad says College Board needs to stand firm behind curriculum, Chief counsel of respected mid-70s Senate inquiry into improper federal investigations says credibility of oversight function at stake, 2023 The President and Fellows of Harvard College, Photo courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration, By Manisha Aggarwal-Schifellite Harvard Staff Writer, 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. It is the antagonistic force in your government, the only thing that seriously disturbs and endangers your Union. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! A feeling has crept over me, quite unfavorable to the exercise of my limited powers of speech. Your broad republican domain is hunting ground for men. The cause of liberty may be stabbed by the men who glory in the deeds of your fathers. Feeling themselves harshly and unjustly treated by the home government, your fathers, like men of honesty, and men of spirit, earnestly sought redress. 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! I shall see, this day, and its popular characteristics, from the slaves point of view. Where these go, may also go the merciless slave-hunter. 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. To me the American slave-trade is a terrible reality. "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? The speech has since been published under the above title in The Frederick Douglass Papers, Series One, Vol. And instead of being the honest men I have before declared them to be, they were the veriest imposters that ever practiced on mankind. The speech notes the contradiction of the national ethos of United States and the way enslaved persons are treated. I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies. Now, there are certain rules of interpretation, for the proper understanding of all legal instruments. Douglass says that if the residents of America believe that slaves are "men",[20]:342 they should be treated as such. While I do not intend to argue this question on the present occasion, let me ask, if it be not somewhat singular that, if the Constitution were intended to be, by its framers and adopters, a slave-holding instrument, why neither slavery, slaveholding, nor slave can anywhere be found in it. 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. How should I look to-day, in the presence of Americans, dividing, and subdividing a discourse, to show that men have a natural right to freedom? be warned! You hurl your anathemas at the crowned headed tyrants of Russia and Austria, and pride yourselves on your Democratic institutions, while you yourselves consent to be the mere tools and body-guards of the tyrants of Virginia and Carolina. What to the American slave is your Fourth of July? The anguish of my boyish heart was intense; and I was often consoled, when speaking to my mistress in the morning, to hear her say that the custom was very wicked; that she hated to hear the rattle of the chains, and the heart-rending cries. If any man in this assembly thinks differently from me in this matter, and feels able to disprove my statements, I will gladly confront him at any suitable time and place he may select.I take this law to be one of the grossest infringements of Christian Liberty, and, if the churches and ministers of our country were not stupidly blind, or most wickedly indifferent, they, too, would so regard it.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. What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? He implored the Rochester, N.Y., audience to think about the ongoing oppression of Black Americans during a holiday celebrating freedom. This trade is one of the peculiarities of American institutions. They petitioned and remonstrated; they did so in a decorous, respectful, and loyal manner. For who is there so cold, that a nations sympathy could not warm him? The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future, Douglass said. Did this law concern the mint, anise, and cuminabridge the fight to sing psalms, to partake of the sacrament, or to engage in any of the ceremonies of religion, it would be smitten by the thunder of a thousand pulpits. Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? Americans! Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? 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? 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. [Throughout the speech] Douglass looks at the contradictions between the reality of slavery and the lofty claims of a just society outlined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. Genius is the ultimate source of music knowledge, created by scholars like you who share facts and insight about the songs and artists they love. A general shout would go up from the church, demanding repeal, repeal, instant repeal!And it would go hard with that politician who presumed to solicit the votes of the people without inscribing this motto on his banner. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably work The downfall of slavery. He is outraged by the lack of responsibility and indifference towards slavery that many sects have taken around the nation. 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. You are all on fire at the mention of liberty for France or for Ireland; but are as cold as an iceberg at the thought of liberty for the enslaved of America. Their opposition to the then dangerous thought was earnest and powerful; but, amid all their terror and affrighted vociferations against it, the alarming and revolutionary idea moved on, and the country with it. One small step toward understanding gravity, Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is. $ 3.60. 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.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 4th of July is the first great fact in your nations historythe very ring-bolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? From Boston to London is now a holiday excursion. Your fathers have lived, died, and have done their work, and have done much of it well. 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! [4], The speech "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" Of this sort of change they are always strongly in favor. that it should be so; yet so it is. "[1][2] 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 Society. Your fathers were wise men, and if they did not go mad, they became restive under this treatment. [20]:346 To prove evidence of these inconsistencies, as one historian noted, during the speech Douglass claims that the United States Constitution is an abolitionist document and not a pro-slavery document.[22][23][24]. The anti-slavery movement there was 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 or a hostile position towards that movement. Your lawmakers have commanded all good citizens to engage in this hellish sport. There, the church, true to its mission of ameliorating, elevating, and improving the condition of mankind, came forward promptly, bound up the wounds of the West Indian slave, and restored him to his liberty. I repeat, I am glad this is so. 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! 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.In the deep still darkness of midnight, I have been often aroused by the dead heavy footsteps, and the piteous cries of the chained gangs that passed our door. The little experience I have had in addressing public meetings, in country schoolhouses, avails me nothing on the present occasion. 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. He thinks they were extremely intelligent, and the thinks it is admirable that when they realized they were oppressed by Britain, they rebelled. It is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. Yea! 2. They went so far in their excitement as to pronounce the measures of government unjust, unreasonable, and oppressive, and altogether such as ought not to be quietly submitted to. They are food for the cotton-field, and the deadly sugar-mill. Interview was lightly edited for clarity and length. But a change has now come over the affairs of mankind. They may also rise in wrath and fury, and bear away, on their angry waves, the accumulated wealth of years of toil and hardship. Yea! In this respect, Douglass's views converged with that of Abraham Lincoln's[25] in that those politicians who were saying that the Constitution was a justification for their beliefs in regard to slavery were doing so dishonestly. PDF. The Celestial Empire, the mystery of ages, is being solved. Her speed had faltered under the weight of her child and her chains! [19]. He became a leader in the abolitionist movement, which sought to end the practice of slavery, before and during the Civil War. The United States does not have to stay the way it is. In several states, this trade is a chief source of wealth. 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! Mean, citizens, to the American slave-trade is a terrible reality country schoolhouses, avails me nothing the... 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The slaves point of view i repeat, i am not included within the pale of this anniversary.

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