3B. Frederick Douglass (1852)

Read the excerpt below of the speech Frederick Douglass delivered July 5, 1852 after he refused The Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Association invited Douglass to speak at their July Fourth Independence Day Celebration in Rochester, N.Y.

(Click here for the full text of the speech.)

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 judgment 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 to 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.

The clip below features some of Frederick Douglas's descendants reading excerpts from the speech.

The video clip below features the actor James Earl Jones (Darth Vader) reading an excerpt from the speech. The speech begins near the 1:00 minute mark.

Frederick Douglass (1818?-1895)
Born a slave in Talbot county, Maryland.
Douglass himself never knew the exact date of his birth.

In 1838, Douglass escaped by dressing himself as a sailor and traveling by train and later by steamboat to New York City.

In 1841, he attended a Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society convention in Nantucket, Massachusetts, gave a successful extemporaneous speech, and was recruited as an agent for the group. He subsequently traveled the country promotion abolition.

In 1850, the Fugitive Slave is passed. It authorizes the seizure and return of runaway slaves who escape from one state into another.

On July 5, 1852, delivers a speech to The Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Association after refusing to speak at their July Fourth Independence Day Celebration in Rochester, N.Y.

Guilt much?

The speech by Frederick Douglass can easily produce an emotional effect on readers – or listeners – by not only the words he uses, but how he expresses the words and phrases that he uses. This speech, also meant for other black slaves, was obviously meant to produce a feeling of regret and guilt over the American people concerning how they were treating people of color. . . . A point in the speech that surprised me, and saddened me, was the point that reads, “I shall see, this day, and its popular characteristics, from the slave’s point of view” (Douglass). Frederick Douglass does not think of the Fourth of July as a day of gaining independence, but rather losing it. The United States of America might have been free, but that did not mean the same for people of color. This is just one other viewpoint from Douglass that could have easily affected the listeners on an emotional level.

    Question: Is a political speech literature?
    How might teaching this speech be considered a violation of Oklahoma House Bill 1775?

    Consider: Oklahoma House Bill 1775 (2.B.1.g)

Nothing to be argued

I found the most powerful tool of Douglass’ speech to be the parallels he draws at the beginning of each paragraph. “What would you have me argue?”, is a phrase he uses (in several ways) throughout to illustrate that “where all is plain there is nothing to be argued[.]” He establishes that those held in slavery were in fact human beings, and that the fact is already acknowledged by lawmakers, because they can be put to death over 75 different incidents in the State of Virginia. I find it incredibly moving that Douglass will give a point that he should have to argue, and practically destroys the argument from being used.

    Question: Why does Douglass cite Virginia’s death penalty laws as evidence that slaves are considered to be human beings?

Your fathers

Douglass constantly and consistently refers to the Founding Fathers as “your fathers[,]” not once does he acknowledge them as his own. He recognizes the distinction and makes it clear to the audience. “The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me… You may rejoice, I must mourn” (Douglass)[.] Douglass recognizes that this day marks a celebration of freedom that many Americans have, but to him, and many others, celebration is not possible. Rather, this day is a complete mockery to those in slavery. America, the country that was founded on the basis of all men having certain inalienable rights was built on the backs, blood, and bodies of slaves by not only denying them the very rights that kickstarted the country’s existence, but also by refusing to address them as men in the first place. Thus proving it to be one of, if not, the largest hypocrites in world.

    Question: What role do audience and context play in our analysis of the literary qualities of a text?
To understand a literary text, is it enough just to have the words on the page?