Frederick Douglass: Self-Made Man Speech | The Art of Manliness And the lame man leap as an heart, but such is not the case. 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! The arm of the Lord is not shortened, and the doom of slavery is certain. 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. Frederick Douglass The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong city. Frederick Douglass, Fifth of July speech (1852) The crack you heard, was the sound of the slave-whip; the scream you heard, was from the woman you saw with the babe. Is that a question for Republicans? WebFrederick Douglass, Fifth of July speech (1852) O! Copyright 2023 Interactive One, LLC. I do not remember ever to have appeared as a speaker before any assembly more shrinkingly, nor with greater distrust of my ability, than I do this day. Frederick Douglass: (02:57) A feeling has crept over me, quite unfavorable to the exercise of my limited powers of speech. The papers and placards say, that I am to deliver a 4th [of] July oration. 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.. That which is inhuman, cannot be divine! They were great in their day and generation. The accepted time with God and his cause is the ever-living now. Some of these have had wives and children, dependent on them for bread; but of this, no account was made. Great streams are not easily turned from channels, worn deep in the course of ages. To arrest it, to put an end to it, this nation keeps a squadron, at immense cost, on the coast of Africa. But, to proceed. But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. Though a biting Of this sort of change they are always strongly in favor. The duty to extirpate and destroy it, is admitted even by our DOCTORS OF DIVINITY. 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. in preference to the gospel,as preached by those Divines! The Lords of Buffalo, the Springs of New York, the Lathrops of Auburn, the Coxes and Spencers of Brooklyn, the Gannets and Sharps of Boston, the Deweys of Washington, and other great religious lights of the land have, in utter denial of the authority ofHimby whom they professed to be called to the ministry, deliberately taught us, against the example or the Hebrews and against the remonstrance of the Apostles, they teachthat we ought to obey mans law before the law of God. No nation can now shut itself up from the surrounding world, and trot round in the same old path of its fathers without interference. 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. These ministers make religion a cold and flinty-hearted thing, having neither principles of right action, nor bowels of compassion. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. This is the inevitable conclusion, and from it there is no escape. A RESTful API to access Revs workforce of fast, high quality transcriptionists and captioners. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.. 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. 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. The country was poor in the munitions of war. Fellow-citizens! your republican politics, not less than your republican religion, are flagrantly inconsistent. I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slaves point of view. I cannot. 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 At the time of the delivery of this speech, Douglass had been living in Rochester, New York for several years editing a weekly abolitionist newspaper. He was invited to give a fourth of July speech by the Ladies Anti-Slavery Society of Rochester. In the early 1850s, tensions over slavery were high across the county. Your President, your Secretary of State, ourlords,nobles, and ecclesiastics, enforce, as a duty you owe to your free and glorious country, and to your God, that you do this accursed thing. Of this fundamental work, this day is the anniversary. Add English on-screen subtitles for videos. Without this right, the liberty of an American citizen would be as insecure as that of a Frenchman. Speech Build with the best speech-to-text APIs around. You may well cherish the memory of such men. In order to put an end to it, some of these last have consented that their colored brethren (nominally free) should leave this country, and establish themselves on the western coast of Africa! But a change has now come over the affairs of mankind. 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.. Their conduct was wholly unexceptionable. They believed in order; but not in the order of tyranny. Frederick Douglass speech - PBS Frederick Douglass: (03:37) To me the American slave-trade is a terrible reality. As noted here, that banquet was attended by prominent African-American professional men in celebration of the twenty-first anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation.After the toast provided by former Senator Blanche K. Bruce, WebOn January 9, 1894, at Washington, D.C.'s, Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church, Frederick Douglass delivered his "The Lessons of the Hour" speech, which addressed the It has been denounced with burning words, from the high places of the nation, as an execrable traffic. But, besides general considerations, there were peculiar circumstances which make the advent of this republic an event of special attractiveness. WebFrederick Douglass speech What to a Slave is the Fourth of July effectively argues against slavery. I am not that man. Community Reading: Frederick Douglass's "What 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. 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. 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. The ear-piercing fife and the stirring drum unite their accents with the ascending peal of a thousand church bells. Frederick Douglass: (02:13) Frederick Douglass: (00:26) Everybody can say it; the dastard, not less than the noble brave, can flippantly discant on the tyranny of England towards the American Colonies. For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. It is neither. Suicide Note Revealed After Shocking Death, Mississippi Cops Beat, Waterboarded Handcuffed Black Men, Shot 1 For Dating White Women': Lawyers, Indicted! Your fathers were wise men, and if they did not go mad, they became restive under this treatment. The blessings in which you this day rejoice are not enjoyed in common. This Fourth [of] July isyours, notmine. 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. I say it with a sad sense of disparity between us. They may sometimes rise in quiet and stately majesty, and inundate the land, refreshing and fertilizing the earth with their mysterious properties. At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. WebA speech celebrating both Lincoln and African Americans freedom wrought by Lincoln. It would, certainly, prove nothing, as to what part I might have taken, had I lived during the great controversy of 1776. Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. Speech-to-Text API for pre-recorded audio, powered by the worlds leading speech recognition engine. 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? Three score years and ten is the allotted time for individual men; but nations number their years by thousands. These wretched people are to be sold singly, or in lots, to suit purchasers.