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FREDERICK DOUGLASS ON JULY 4TH – A TIMELESS CRITIQUE OF DEMOCRACY
IN THIS COUNTRY (FULL SPEECH)  
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Frederick Douglass
July 5, 1852
Owl Eyes
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_ What to the Slave Is the Fourth July? by Frederick Douglass speaks
to the frustrations spurred by the gap between the ideals of the
United States and the reality we witness every day, and the threat of
fascism. Read/listen to his brilliant speech. _

On July 5, 1852, Douglass gave a speech at an event commemorating the
signing of the Declaration of Independence, held at Rochester, New
York's Corinthian Hall. He proclaimed a timeless Black critique of
democracy in this country., YouTube

 

“What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” by Frederick Douglass

Delivered on Monday, July 5th, 1852, in Rochester, New York

_[Now is time to read the full speech of Frederick Douglass
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and not just because of the date, but because of what's at stake in
the country.]_

 

Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this
audience without a quailing sensation, has stronger nerves than I
have. 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. A feeling has crept over me, quite unfavorable to
the exercise of my limited powers of speech. The task before me is one
which requires much previous thought and study for its proper
performance. I know that apologies of this sort are generally
considered flat and unmeaning. I trust, however, that mine will not be
so considered. Should I seem at ease, my appearance would much
misrepresent me. The little experience I have had in addressing public
meetings, in country school houses, avails me nothing on the present
occasion.

The papers and placards say, that I am to deliver a 4th [of] July
oration. 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. But neither their familiar faces, nor the perfect gage I
think I have of Corinthian Hall, seems to free me from embarrassment.

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. That I am here to-day is, to me, a
matter of astonishment as well as of gratitude. 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. With little experience and with less learning, I have been
able to throw my thoughts hastily and imperfectly together; and
trusting to your patient and generous indulgence, I will proceed to
lay them before you.

This, for the purpose of this celebration, is the 4th of July. It is
the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political
freedom. This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated
people of God. 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. This celebration also marks
the beginning of another year of your national life; and reminds you
that the Republic of America is now 76 years old. I am glad,
fellow-citizens, that your nation is so young. Seventy-six years,
though a good old age for a man, is but a mere speck in the life of a
nation. Three score years and ten is the allotted time for individual
men; but nations number their years by thousands. According to this
fact, you are, even now, only in the beginning of your national
career, still lingering in the period of childhood. I repeat, I am
glad this is so. There is hope in the thought, and hope is much
needed, under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon. The eye
of the reformer is met with angry flashes, portending disastrous
times; but his heart may well beat lighter at the thought that
America is young, and that she is still in the impressible stage of
her existence. May he not hope that high lessons of wisdom, of justice
and of truth, will yet give direction to her destiny? Were the nation
older, the patriot's heart might be sadder, and the reformer's brow
heavier. Its future might be shrouded in gloom, and the hope of its
prophets go out in sorrow. There is consolation in the thought that
America is young. Great streams are not easily turned from channels,
worn deep in the course of ages. They may sometimes rise in quiet and
stately majesty, and inundate the land, refreshing and fertilizing the
earth with their mysterious properties. They may also rise in wrath
and fury, and bear away, on their angry waves, the accumulated wealth
of years of toil and hardship. They, however, gradually flow back to
the same old channel, and flow on as serenely as ever. But, while the
river may not be turned aside, it may dry up, and leave nothing behind
but the withered branch, and the unsightly rock, to howl in
the abyss-sweeping wind, the sad tale of departed glory. As with
rivers so with nations.

Fellow-citizens, I shall not presume to dwell at length on the
associations that cluster about this day. The simple story of it is
that, 76 years ago, the people of this country were British subjects.
The style and title of your "sovereign people" (in which you now
glory) was not then born. You were under the British Crown. Your
fathers esteemed the English Government as the home government; and
England as the fatherland. This home government, you know, although a
considerable distance from your home, did, in the exercise of its
parental prerogatives, impose upon its colonial children, such
restraints, burdens and limitations, as, in its mature judgement, it
deemed wise, right and proper.

But, your fathers, who had not adopted the fashionable idea of this
day, of the infallibility of government, and the absolute character of
its acts, presumed to differ from the home government in respect to
the wisdom and the justice of some of those burdens and restraints.
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. I scarcely need say,
fellow-citizens, that my opinion of those measures fully accords with
that of your fathers. Such a declaration of agreement on my part would
not be worth much to anybody. It would, certainly, prove nothing, as
to what part I might have taken, had I lived during the great
controversy of 1776. To say now that America was right, and England
wrong, is exceedingly easy. Everybody can say it; the dastard, not
less than the noble brave, can flippantly discant on the tyranny of
England towards the American Colonies. 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 men's souls. They who did so were
accounted in their day, plotters of mischief, agitators and rebels,
dangerous men. To side with the right, against the wrong, with the
weak against the strong, and with the oppressed against the
oppressor! here lies the merit, and the one which, of all others,
seems unfashionable in our day. The cause of liberty may be stabbed by
the men who glory in the deeds of your fathers. But, to proceed.

Feeling themselves harshly and unjustly treated by the home
government, your fathers, like men of honesty, and men of spirit,
earnestly sought redress. They petitioned and remonstrated; they did
so in a decorous, respectful, and loyal manner. Their conduct was
wholly unexceptionable. This, however, did not answer the purpose.
They saw themselves treated with sovereign indifference, coldness and
scorn. Yet they persevered. They were not the men to look back.

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. The greatest and
best of British statesmen admitted its justice, and the loftiest
eloquence of the British Senate came to its support. But, with that
blindness which seems to be the unvarying characteristic of
tyrants, since Pharaoh and his hosts were drowned in the Red Sea, the
British Government persisted in the exactions complained of.

The madness of this course, we believe, is admitted now, even by
England; but we fear the lesson is wholly lost on our present rulers.

Oppression makes a wise man mad. Your fathers were wise men, and if
they did not go mad, they became restive under this treatment. They
felt themselves the victims of grievous wrongs, wholly incurable in
their colonial capacity. With brave men there is always a remedy for
oppression. Just here, the idea of a total separation of the colonies
from the crown was born! It was a startling idea, much more so, than
we, at this distance of time, regard it. The timid and the prudent (as
has been intimated) of that day, were, of course, shocked and alarmed
by it.

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. They hate all changes, but silver, gold
and copper change! Of this sort of change they are always strongly in
favor.

These people were called tories in the days of your fathers; and the
appellation, probably, conveyed the same idea that is meant by a more
modern, though a somewhat less euphonious term, which we often find
in our papers, applied to some of our old politicians.

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.

On the 2d of July, 1776, the old Continental Congress, to the dismay
of the lovers of ease, and the worshipers of property, clothed that
dreadful idea with all the authority of national sanction. 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.

"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."

Citizens, your fathers made good that resolution. They succeeded; and
to-day you reap the fruits of their success. The freedom gained is
yours; and you, therefore, may properly celebrate this anniversary.
The 4th of July is the first great fact in your nation's history
— the very ring-bolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny.

Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate
and to hold it in perpetual remembrance. I have said that the
Declaration of Independence is the ring-bolt to the chain of your
nation's destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. The principles contained
in that instrument are saving principles. Stand by those principles,
be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and
at whatever cost.

From the round top of your ship of state, dark and threatening clouds
may be seen. Heavy billows, like mountains in the distance, disclose
to the leeward huge forms of flinty rocks! That bolt drawn, that
chain broken, and all is lost. Cling to this day — cling to it, and
to its principles, with the grasp of a storm-tossed mariner to a spar
at midnight.

The coming into being of a nation, in any circumstances, is an
interesting event. But, besides general considerations, there were
peculiar circumstances which make the advent of this republic an event
of special attractiveness.

The whole scene, as I look back to it, was simple, dignified and
sublime.

The population of the country, at the time, stood at the insignificant
number of three millions. The country was poor in the munitions of
war. The population was weak and scattered, and the country a
wilderness unsubdued. There were then no means of concert and
combination, such as exist now. Neither steam nor lightning had then
been reduced to order and discipline. From the Potomac to the Delaware
was a journey of many days. Under these, and innumerable other
disadvantages, your fathers declared for liberty and independence and
triumphed.

Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this
republic. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave
men. They were great men too — great enough to give fame to a great
age. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such
a number of truly great men. The point from which I am compelled to
view them is not, certainly, the most favorable; and yet I cannot
contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration. They were
statesmen, patriots and heroes, and for the good they did, and the
principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their
memory.

They loved their country better than their own private interests; and,
though this is not the highest form of human excellence, all will
concede that it is a rare virtue, and that when it is exhibited, it
ought to command respect. He who will, intelligently, lay down his
life for his country, is a man whom it is not in human nature to
despise. Your fathers staked their lives, their fortunes, and their
sacred honor, on the cause of their country. In their admiration of
liberty, they lost sight of all other interests.

They were peace men; but they preferred revolution to peaceful
submission to bondage. They were quiet men; but they did not shrink
from agitating against oppression. They showed forbearance; but that
they knew its limits. They believed in order; but not in the order of
tyranny. With them, nothing was "settled" that was not right. With
them, justice, liberty and humanity were "final;" not slavery and
oppression. You may well cherish the memory of such men. They were
great in their day and generation. Their solid manhood stands out the
more as we contrast it with these degenerate times.

How circumspect, exact and proportionate were all their movements! How
unlike the politicians of an hour! Their statesmanship looked beyond
the passing moment, and stretched away in strength into the distant
future. They seized upon eternal principles, and set a glorious
example in their defence. Mark them!

Fully appreciating the hardship to be encountered, firmly believing in
the right of their cause, honorably inviting the scrutiny of an
on-looking world, reverently appealing to heaven to attest their
sincerity, soundly comprehending the solemn responsibility they were
about to assume, wisely measuring the terrible odds against them, your
fathers, the fathers of this republic, did, most deliberately, under
the inspiration of a glorious patriotism, and with a sublime faith in
the great principles of justice and freedom, lay deep the corner-stone
of the national superstructure, which has risen and still rises in
grandeur around you.

Of this fundamental work, this day is the anniversary. Our eyes are
met with demonstrations of joyous enthusiasm. Banners and pennants
wave exultingly on the breeze. The din of business, too, is hushed.
Even Mammon seems to have quitted his grasp on this day. The
ear-piercing fife and the stirring drum unite their accents with the
ascending peal of a thousand church bells. Prayers are made, hymns are
sung, and sermons are preached in honor of this day; while the quick
martial tramp of a great and multitudinous nation, echoed back by all
the hills, valleys and mountains of a vast continent, bespeak the
occasion one of thrilling and universal interests nation's jubilee.

Friends and citizens, I need not enter further into the causes which
led to this anniversary. Many of you understand them better than I do.
You could instruct me in regard to them. That is a branch of knowledge
in which you feel, perhaps, a much deeper interest than your speaker.
The causes which led to the separation of the colonies from the
British crown have never lacked for a tongue. 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. They form the staple of your
national poetry and eloquence.

I remember, also, that, as a people, Americans are remarkably familiar
with all facts which make in their own favor. This is esteemed by some
as a national trait — perhaps a national weakness. It is a fact,
that whatever makes for the wealth or for the reputation of Americans,
and can be had cheap! will be found by Americans. 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.

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!

THE PRESENT.

My business, if I have any here to-day, is with the present. The
accepted time with God and his cause is the ever-living now.

          "Trust no future, however pleasant,
              Let the dead past bury its dead;
          Act, act in the living present,
              Heart within, and God overhead."

We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the
present and to the future. To all inspiring motives, to noble deeds
which can be gained from the past, we are welcome. But now is the
time, the important time. Your fathers have lived, died, and have done
their work, and have done much of it well. You live and must die, and
you must do your work. You have no right to enjoy a child's share in
the labor of your fathers, unless your children are to be blest by
your labors. You have no right to wear out and waste the hard-earned
fame of your fathers to cover your indolence. Sydney Smith tells us
that men seldom eulogize the wisdom and virtues of their fathers, but
to excuse some folly or wickedness of their own. This truth is not a
doubtful one. There are illustrations of it near and remote, ancient
and modern. 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 Abraham's faith and spirit. That people contented
themselves under the shadow of Abraham's great name, while they
repudiated the deeds which made his name great. Need I remind you that
a similar thing is being done all over this country 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?
Washington could not die till he had broken the chains of his slaves.
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
to our father." Alas! that it should be so; yet so it is.

          "The evil that men do, lives after them,
          The good is oft' interred with their bones."

Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to
speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your
national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom
and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence,
extended to us? 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! Then would my task be
light, and my burden easy and delightful. For who is there so cold,
that a nation's sympathy could not warm him? Who so obdurate and dead
to the claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such
priceless benefits? Who so stolid and selfish, that would not give his
voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nation's jubilee, when the chains
of servitude had been torn from his limbs? I am not that man. In a
case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the "lame man
leap as an hart."

But, such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of
the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this
glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the
immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this
day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of
justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your
fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life
and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth
[of] July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. 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 and
sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to
speak to-day? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. 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! I can to-day take
up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people!

"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yea! we wept when we
remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst
thereof. 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. How can we sing the Lord's song in a strange
land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her
cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof
of my mouth."

Fellow-citizens; above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the
mournful wail of millions! whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday,
are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that
reach them. 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. My subject, then
fellow-citizens, is AMERICAN SLAVERY. I shall see, this day, and its
popular characteristics, from the slave's point of view. 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! 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. America is false to the past, false to the
present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.
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! "I will not equivocate; I will not excuse;" I will use the
severest language I can command; and yet not one word shall escape me
that any man, whose judgement is not blinded by prejudice, or who is
not at heart a slaveholder, shall not confess to be right and just.

But I fancy I hear some one of my audience say, it is just in this
circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a
favorable impression on the public mind. Would you argue more, and
denounce less, would you persuade more, and rebuke less, your cause
would be much more likely to succeed. But, I submit, where all is
plain there is nothing to be argued. What point in the anti-slavery
creed would you have me argue? On what branch of the subject do the
people of this country need light? Must I undertake to prove that the
slave is a man? That point is conceded already. Nobody doubts it. The
slaveholders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for
their government. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on
the part of the slave. 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. What is
this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual
and responsible being? The manhood of the slave is conceded. 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. 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. 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, there will I argue with you that the slave is a
man!

For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the negro
race. 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
Christian's God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond
the grave, we are called upon to prove that we are men!

Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? that he is
the rightful owner of his own body? You have already declared it. Must
I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Is that a question for
Republicans? 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 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? speaking of it relatively, and positively,
negatively, and affirmatively. To do so, would be to make myself
ridiculous, and lo offer an insult to your understanding. There is not
a man beneath the canopy of heaven, that does not know that slavery is
wrong for him.

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? Must I argue that a system
thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, is wrong? No! I
will not. I have better employments for my time and strength, than
such arguments would imply.

What, then, remains to be argued? Is it that slavery is not divine;
that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are
mistaken? There is blasphemy in the thought. That which is inhuman,
cannot be divine! Who can reason on such a proposition? They that can,
may; I cannot. The time for such argument is past.

At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is
needed. O! had I the ability, and could I reach the nation's ear, I
would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting
reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light
that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We
need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. 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.

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? 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. 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. 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.

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.

INTERNAL SLAVE TRADE

Take the American slave-trade, which, we are told by the papers, is
especially prosperous just now. Ex-Senator Benton tells us that the
price of men was never higher than now. He mentions the fact to show
that slavery is in no danger. This trade is one of the peculiarities
of American institutions. 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. In several states, this
trade is a chief source of wealth. It is called (in contradistinction
to the foreign slave-trade) "the internal slave trade." It is,
probably, called so, too, in order to divert from it the horror with
which the foreign slave-trade is contemplated. That trade has long
since been denounced by this government, as piracy. It has been
denounced with burning words, from the high places of the nation, as
an execrable traffic. To arrest it, to put an end to it, this nation
keeps a squadron, at immense cost, on the coast of Africa. 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
duty to extirpate and destroy it, is admitted even by our DOCTORS OF
DIVINITY. 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!
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.

Behold the practical operation of this internal slave-trade, the
American slave-trade, sustained by American politics and American
religion. Here you will see men and women reared like swine for the
market. You know what is a swine-drover? I will show you a man-drover.
They inhabit all our Southern States. They perambulate the country,
and crowd the highways of the nation, with droves of human stock. You
will see one of these human flesh-jobbers, armed with pistol, whip and
bowie-knife, driving a company of a hundred men, women, and children,
from the Potomac to the slave market at New Orleans. These wretched
people are to be sold singly, or in lots, to suit purchasers. They are
food for the cotton-field, and the deadly sugar-mill. Mark the sad
procession, as it moves wearily along, and the inhuman wretch who
drives them. Hear his savage yells and his blood-chilling oaths, as he
hurries on his affrighted captives! There, see the old man, with locks
thinned and gray. 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. See, too, that girl of
thirteen, weeping, yes! weeping, as she thinks of the mother from whom
she has been torn! The drove moves tardily. 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 centre of your soul! The crack you heard, was
the sound of the slave-whip; the scream you heard, was from the woman
you saw with the babe. Her speed had faltered under the weight of her
child and her chains! that gash on her shoulder tells her to move on.
Follow this drove to New Orleans. 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. See this drove sold and
separated forever; and never forget the deep, sad sobs that arose from
that scattered multitude. Tell me citizens, WHERE, under the sun, you
can witness a spectacle more fiendish and shocking. Yet this is but a
glance at the American slave-trade, as it exists, at this moment, in
the ruling part of the United States.

I was born amid such sights and scenes. To me the American slave-trade
is a terrible reality. When a child, my soul was often pierced with a
sense of its horrors. I lived on Philpot Street, Fell's 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. There
was, at that time, a grand slave mart kept at the head of Pratt
Street, by Austin Woldfolk. 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. These men were
generally well dressed men, and very captivating in their manners.
Ever ready to drink, to treat, and to gamble. 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. When a sufficient number
have been collected here, a ship is chartered, for the purpose of
conveying the forlorn crew to Mobile, or to New Orleans. 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 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. I was glad to
find one who sympathised with me in my horror.

Fellow-citizens, this murderous traffic is, to-day, in active
operation in this boasted republic. In the solitude of my spirit, I
see clouds of dust raised on the highways of the South; I see the
bleeding footsteps; I hear the doleful wail of fettered humanity, on
the way to the slave-markets, where the victims are to be sold like
horses, sheep, and swine, knocked off to the highest bidder. There I
see the tenderest ties ruthlessly broken, to gratify the lust, caprice
and rapacity of the buyers and sellers of men. My soul sickens at the
sight.

          "Is this the land your Fathers loved,
          The freedom which they toiled to win?
          Is this the earth whereon they moved?
          Are these the graves they slumber in?"

But a still more inhuman, disgraceful, and scandalous state of things
remains to be presented.

By an act of the American Congress, not yet two years old, slavery has
been nationalized in its most horrible and revolting form. By that
act, Mason & Dixon's 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. The power is
co-extensive with the star-spangled banner and American Christianity.
Where these go, may also go the merciless slave-hunter. Where these
are, man is not sacred. He is a bird for the sportsman's gun. By that
most foul and fiendish of all human decrees, the liberty and person of
every man are put in peril. Your broad republican domain is hunting
ground for men. Not for thieves and robbers, enemies of society,
merely, but for men guilty of no crime. Your lawmakers have commanded
all good citizens to engage in this hellish sport. Your President,
your Secretary of State, your lords, 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. Not fewer than forty
Americans have, within the past two years, been hunted down and,
without a moment's warning, hurried away in chains, and consigned to
slavery and excruciating torture. Some of these have had wives and
children, dependent on them for bread; but of this, no account was
made. 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! For black men there are neither law, justice, humanity, not
religion. The Fugitive Slave Law makes MERCY TO THEM, A CRIME; and
bribes the judge who tries them. An American JUDGE GETS TEN DOLLARS
FOR EVERY VICTIM HE CONSIGNS to slavery, and five, when he fails to do
so. 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! His own testimony is nothing. He can
bring no witnesses for himself. The minister of American justice is
bound by the law to hear but one side; and that side, is the side of
the oppressor. Let this damning fact be perpetually told. 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 palpable
bribe, and are bound, in deciding in the case of a man's liberty, hear
only his accusers!

In glaring violation of justice, in shameless disregard of the forms
of administering law, in cunning arrangement to entrap the
defenceless, and in diabolical intent, this Fugitive Slave Law stands
alone in the annals of tyrannical legislation. 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. 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.

RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

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. Did this law concern the "mint, anise and cummin"—
abridge the right 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. 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. 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. 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. The fact that the church of our country, (with fractional
exceptions), does not esteem "the Fugitive Slave Law" as a declaration
of war against religious liberty, implies that that church regards
religion simply as a form of worship, an empty ceremony, and not a
vital principle, requiring active benevolence, justice, love and good
will towards man. It esteems sacrifice above mercy; psalm-singing
above right doing; solemn meetings above practical righteousness. A
worship that can be conducted by persons who refuse to give shelter to
the houseless, to give bread to the hungry, clothing to the naked, and
who enjoin obedience to a law forbidding these acts of mercy, is a
curse, not a blessing to mankind. The Bible addresses all such persons
as "scribes, pharisees, hypocrites, who pay tithe of mint, anise, and
cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgement,
mercy and faith."

THE CHURCH RESPONSIBLE

But the church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs
of the slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors. It has made
itself the xxxxxx of American slavery, and the shield of American
slave-hunters. Many of its most eloquent Divines, 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 have taught
that man may, properly, be a slave; that the relation of master and
slave is ordained of God; that to send back an escaped bondman to his
master is clearly the duty of all the followers of the Lord Jesus
Christ; and this horrible blasphemy is palmed off upon the world for
Christianity.

For my part, I would say, welcome infidelity! welcome atheism! welcome
anything! in preference to the gospel, as preached by those Divines!
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! These ministers make religion a
cold and flinty-hearted thing, having neither principles of right
action, nor bowels of compassion. They strip the love of God of its
beauty, and leave the throne of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive
form. It is a religion for oppressors, tyrants, man-stealers, and
thugs. 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.
All this we affirm to be true of the popular church, and the popular
worship of our land and nation — a religion, a church, and a worship
which, on the authority of inspired wisdom, we pronounce to be an
abomination in the sight of God. In the language of Isaiah, the
American church might be well addressed, "Bring no more vain
oblations; incense is an abomination unto me: the new moons and
Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is
iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed
feasts my soul hateth. 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. Yea! when ye make many prayers, I will not hear. YOUR HANDS ARE
FULL OF BLOOD; cease to do evil, learn to do well; seek judgement;
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. The sin of which it
is guilty is one of omission as well as of commission. 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."

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.

In prosecuting the anti-slavery enterprise, we have been asked to
spare the church, to spare the ministry; but how, we ask, could such a
thing be done? 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. From
what quarter, I beg to know, has proceeded a fire so deadly upon our
ranks, during the last two years, as from the Northern pulpit? As the
champions of oppressors, the chosen men of American theology have
appeared — men, honored for their so-called piety, and their real
learning. 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 of Him, by whom
they professed to he called to the ministry, deliberately taught us,
against the example of the Hebrews and against the remonstrance of the
Apostles, they teach "that we ought to obey man's law before the law
of God."

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. 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.
There are exceptions, and I thank God that there are. Noble men may be
found, scattered all over these Northern States, of whom Henry Ward
Beecher of Brooklyn, Samuel J. May of Syracuse, and my esteemed friend
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 slave's
redemption from his chains.

RELIGION IN ENGLAND AND RELIGION IN AMERICA

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. 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.
There, the question of emancipation was a high[ly] religious question.
It was demanded, in the name of humanity, and according to the law of
the living God. The Sharps, the Clarksons, the Wilberforces, the
Buxtons, and Burchells and the Knibbs, were alike famous for their
piety, and for their philanthropy. 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 of a hostile
position towards that movement. Americans! your republican politics,
not less than your republican religion, are flagrantly inconsistent.
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. 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
bodyguards of the tyrants of Virginia and Carolina. 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. You
glory in your refinement and your universal education; yet you
maintain a system as barbarous and dreadful as ever stained the
character of a nation — a system begun in avarice, supported in
pride, and perpetuated in cruelty. 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! 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. You discourse eloquently on the dignity of labor; yet, you
sustain a system which, in its very essence, casts a stigma upon
labor. 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. 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.
You declare, before the world, and are understood by the world to
declare, that you "hold these truths to be self evident, that all men
are created equal; and are endowed by their Creator with certain
inalienable rights; and that, among these are, life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness;" and yet, you hold securely, in a bondage which,
according to your own Thomas Jefferson, "is worse than ages of that
which your fathers rose in rebellion to oppose," a seventh part of the
inhabitants of your country.

Fellow-citizens! I will not enlarge further on your national
inconsistencies. The existence of slavery in this country brands your
republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretence, and your
Christianity as a lie. It destroys your moral power abroad; it
corrupts your politicians at home. It saps the foundation of religion;
it makes your name a hissing, and a by word to a mocking earth. It is
the antagonistic force in your government, the only thing that
seriously disturbs and endangers your Union. It fetters your progress;
it is the enemy of improvement, the deadly foe of education; it
fosters pride; it breeds insolence; it promotes vice; it shelters
crime; it is a curse to the earth that supports it; and yet, you cling
to it, as if it were the sheet anchor of all your hopes. Oh! be
warned! be warned! a horrible reptile is coiled up in your nation's
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!

THE CONSTITUTION

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

          "To palter with us in a double sense:
              And keep the word of promise to the ear,
              But break it to the heart."

And instead of being the honest men I have before declared them to be,
they were the veriest imposters that ever practised on mankind. This
is the inevitable conclusion, and from it there is no escape. But I
differ from those who charge this baseness on the framers of the
Constitution of the United States. It is a slander upon their memory,
at least, so I believe. 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 subject has been handled
with masterly power by Lysander Spooner, Esq., by William Goodell, by
Samuel E. Sewall, Esq., and last, though not least, by Gerritt Smith,
Esq. These gentlemen have, as I think, fully and clearly vindicated
the Constitution from any design to support slavery for an hour.

Fellow-citizens! 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. In that
instrument I hold there is neither warrant, license, nor sanction of
the hateful thing; but, interpreted as it ought to be interpreted, the
Constitution is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT. Read its preamble,
consider its purposes. Is slavery among them? Is it at the gateway? or
is it in the temple? It is neither. 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. What
would be thought of an instrument, drawn up, legally drawn up, for the
purpose of entitling the city of Rochester to a tract of land, in
which no mention of land was made? Now, there are certain rules of
interpretation, for the proper understanding of all legal instruments.
These rules are well established. 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. I scout the idea that the
question of the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of slavery is
not a question for the people. I hold that every American citizen has
a right to form an opinion of the constitution, and to propagate that
opinion, and to use all honorable means to make his opinion the
prevailing one. Without this right, the liberty of an American
citizen would be as insecure as that of a
Frenchman. 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. He further says, the constitution, in its
words, is plain and intelligible, and is meant for the home-bred,
unsophisticated understandings of our fellow-citizens. Senator
Berrien tell us that the Constitution is the fundamental law, that
which controls all others. The charter of our liberties, which every
citizen has a personal interest in understanding thoroughly. 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. I take it, therefore, that it is not presumption in a
private citizen to form an opinion of that instrument.

Now, take the constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy
the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. On the other
hand it will be found to contain principles and purposes, entirely
hostile to the existence of slavery.

I have detained my audience entirely too long already. At some future
period I will gladly avail myself of an opportunity to give this
subject a full and fair discussion.

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. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably
work the downfall of slavery. "The arm of the Lord is not shortened,"
and the doom of slavery is certain. I, therefore, leave off where I
began, with hope. 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. Nations do not now stand in the same relation
to each other that they did ages ago. 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 time was when such could be done.
Long established customs of hurtful character could formerly fence
themselves in, and do their evil work with social impunity. Knowledge
was then confined and enjoyed by the privileged few, and the multitude
walked on in mental darkness. But a change has now come over the
affairs of mankind. Walled cities and empires have become
unfashionable. The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the
strong city. Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the
globe. It makes its pathway over and under the sea, as well as on the
earth. Wind, steam, and lightning are its chartered agents. Oceans no
longer divide, but link nations together. From Boston to London is now
a holiday excursion. Space is comparatively annihilated. Thoughts
expressed on one side of the Atlantic are, distinctly heard on the
other. The far off and almost fabulous Pacific rolls in grandeur at
our feet. The Celestial Empire, the mystery of ages, is being solved.
The fiat of the Almighty, "Let there be Light," has not yet spent
its force. No abuse, no outrage whether in taste, sport or avarice,
can now hide itself from the all-pervading light. The iron shoe, and
crippled foot of China must be seen, in contrast with nature. Africa
must rise and put on her yet unwoven garment. "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:

          God speed the year of jubilee              
              The wide world o'er!
          When from their galling chains set free,
              Th' oppress'd shall vilely bend the knee,
          And wear the yoke of tyranny
              Like brutes no more.
          That year will come, and freedom's reign,
          To man his plundered rights again
              Restore.

          God speed the day when human blood
              Shall cease to flow!
          In every clime be understood,
          The claims of human brotherhood,
          And each return for evil, good,
              Not blow for blow;
          That day will come all feuds to end
          And change into a faithful friend
              Each foe.

          God speed the hour, the glorious hour,
              When none on earth
          Shall exercise a lordly power,
          Nor in a tyrant's presence cower;
          But all to manhood's stature tower,
              By equal birth!
          THAT HOUR WILL, COME, to each, to all,
          And from his prison-house, the thrall
              Go forth.

          Until that year, day, hour, arrive,
          With head, and heart, and hand I'll strive,
          To break the rod, and rend the gyve,
          The spoiler of his prey deprive--
              So witness Heaven!
          And never from my chosen post,
          Whate'er the peril or the cost,
              Be driven.

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The Meaning of July 4 for the Negro Read By Ossie Davis (1975)

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On July 5th, 1852 Frederick Douglass spoke at Corinthian Hall in
Rochester, New York on the significance of America’s Independence
Day. Ossie Davis reads this speech, compiled by Phil Foner, which
demonstrates Douglass’ incomparable skill in oration and commands
respect for the legendary thinker and activist. Admitting to being
embarrassed by the great "distance between this platform and the slave
plantation, from which [he] escaped," Douglass proceeded to praise the
"sublime faith in the great principles of justice and freedom" out of
which the United States was born, while mourning the "sad sense of
disparity" that even after national independence persists in keeping
an "immeasurable distance between us" through the bonds of slavery.
(The Emancipation Proclamation was not issued until 1863, and the 13th
Amendment did not officially end slavery until 1865.) (Remastered and
reiussed on SFW47006 The Oratory of Frederick Douglass.)

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