what to the slave is the fourth of july annotation

On July 4, 1852, Frederick Douglass-- a former American slave, abolitionist leader and adroit speaker-- spoke in Rochester, New York about the affectation of celebrating independence. ARI . He became a leader in the abolitionist movement, which sought to end the practice of slavery, before and during the Civil War. What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? In several states, this trade is a chief source of wealth. Rhetoricians R. L. Heath and D. Waymer refer to this as the "paradox of the positive" because it highlights how something positive and meant to be positive can also exclude individuals. A self-taught man, he escaped from slavery and eventually became a leader in the abolitionist movement. 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. He says that, if anything, many churches actually stand behind slavery and support the continued existence of the institution. An American judge gets ten dollars for every victim he con signs to slavery, and five, when he fails to do so. They are food for the cotton-field, and the deadly sugar-mill. He mentions the fact to show that slavery is in no danger. You invite to your shores fugitives of oppression from abroad, honor them with banquets, greet them with ovations, cheer them, toast them, salute them, protect them, and pour out your money to them like water; but the fugitives from your own land you advertise, hunt, arrest, shoot and kill. welcome atheism! What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. The iron shoe, and crippled foot of China must be seen, in contrast with nature. He is outraged by the lack of responsibility and indifference towards slavery that many sects have taken around the nation. I shall see, this day, and its popular characteristics, from the slaves point of view. The audience must fulfill what the founders of the country advocated. 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 right of the hunter to his prey stands superior to the right of marriage, and to all rights in this republic, the rights of God included! [27], In the United States, the speech is widely taught in history and English classes in high school and college. Alison Drasner, the project coordinator for the Somerville Museum, teamed up with Dave Ortega at the Somerville Media Center to prerecord voices of 50 Somerville residents, including my 7-year-old daughter, Charlotte, to read sections of the speech. In a Fourth of July holiday special, we hear the words of Frederick Douglass. From Boston to London is now a holiday excursion. You have already declared it. Were the nation older, the patriots heart might be sadder, and the reformers brow heavier. . 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! The Bible addresses all such persons as scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, who pay tithe of mint, anise, and cumin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith.But the church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of the slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors. Summary: "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" In "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?", otherwise known as "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro," Frederick Douglassoutlines a careful argument against the institution of slavery and more specifically the Fugitive Slave Act. He validates the feelings of injustice the Founders felt then juxtaposes their experiences with vivid descriptions of the harshness of slavery.[21]. who stand as the very lights of the church, have shamelessly given the sanction of religion and the Bible to the whole slave system. They are a trouble to me; I am weary to bear them; and when ye spread forth your hands I will hide mine eyes from you. 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. By an act of the American Congress, not yet two years old, Mason and Dixons line has been obliterated, Did this law concern the mint, anise, and cumin. Creative people have bypassed gatekeepers for centuries to distribute what they wanted to share so badly. They find common ground in Houghton Library exhibition. [16] Additionally, it awarded $10 to a judge who sentenced an individual to return to enslavement, while awarding only $5 if the claim was dismissed. 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. No! Noble men may be found, scattered all over these Northern States, of whom Henry Ward Beecher of Brooklyn, Samuel J. "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? How can we sing the Lords song in a strange land? From the round top of your ship of state, dark and threatening clouds may be seen. in preference to the gospel, as preached by those Divines! [13] Although the import of people directly from Africa had been banned in 1807,[14] the domestic slave trade, still legal, was thriving. By that most foul and fiendish of all human decrees, the liberty and person of every man are put in peril. In a Fourth of July holiday special, we begin with the words of Frederick Douglass. The power is co-extensive with the Star-Spangled Banner and American Christianity. I do not remember ever to have appeared as a speaker before any assembly more. 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. Because the church stood behind the decision to abolish the selling and buying of people, so did the rest of the country. I will show you a man-drover. It is the antagonistic force in your government, the only thing that seriously disturbs and endangers your Union. Not fewer than forty Americans have, within the past two years, been hunted down and, without a moments warning, hurried away in chains, and consigned to slavery and excruciating torture. The cause of liberty may be stabbed by the men who glory in the deeds of your fathers. [4], The speech "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" 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? 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.The flesh-mongers gather up their victims by dozens, and drive them, chained, to the general depot at Baltimore. 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. 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. 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. Douglass believed that slavery could be eliminated with the support of the church, and also with the reexamination of what the Bible was actually saying. Your broad republican domain is hunting ground for men. 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. By that act, Mason and Dixons line has been obliterated; New York has become as Virginia; and the power to hold, hunt, and sell men, women, and children as slaves remains no longer a mere state institution, but is now an institution of the whole United States. I am not that man. The timid and the prudent (as has been intimated) of that day, were, of course, shocked and alarmed by it. Is it at the gateway? Douglass vividly describes the conditions under which those enslaved are bought and sold; he says that they are treated as no more than animals. Assignment in book chapter School Alief Early College High School Course English language and literature (ELL2002) Uploaded by God Academic year2021/2022 Helpful? that gash on her shoulder tells her to move on. Douglass declares that true freedom can not exist in America if Black people are still enslaved there and is adamant that the end of slavery is near. 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, and let the weight of twenty millions crush and destroy it forever!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.Then, I dare to affirm, notwithstanding all I have said before, your fathers stooped, basely stooped. Ex-Senator Benton tells us that the price of men was never higher than now. Frederick Douglass delivered his famous speech at the Corinthian Hall in Rochester, NY, on July. (3) $3.99. 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