what to the slave is the fourth of july annotation

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. He wrote and presented a speech that challenged . This Fourth [of] July is yours, not mine. Now, there are certain rules of interpretation, for the proper understanding of all legal instruments. There, the question of emancipation was a high religious question. He describes the legislation as "tyrannical," and believes that it is in "violation of justice.". He talks about how Americans are proud of their country and their religion and how they rejoice in the name of freedom and liberty and yet they do not offer those things to millions of their country's residents. Table of Contents. It is the antagonistic force in your government, the only thing that seriously disturbs and endangers your Union. I scout the idea that the question of the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of slavery is not a question for the people. On July 5, 1852, in . In the language of Isaiah, the American church might be well addressed, Bring no more vain ablations; 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. But a still more inhuman, disgraceful, and scandalous state of things remains to be presented. As the champions of oppressors, the chosen men of American theology have appearedmen, honored for their so-called piety, and their real learning. It is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. 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! Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? 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. 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. [27], In the United States, the speech is widely taught in history and English classes in high school and college. I was glad to find one who sympathized with me in my horror.Fellow-citizens, this murderous traffic is, to-day, in active operation in this boasted republic. [Under the Act] it became illegal not to arrest and return runaway slaves. Space is comparatively annihilated. They hate all changes, but silver, gold and copper change! 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. 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 America religion. Products. [4], Noted for its biting irony and bitter rhetoric, and acute textual analysis of the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Christian Bible, the speech is among the most widely known of all of Douglass's writings. Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. 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. But the 1852 "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" speech remains the best known of his addresses on the occasion, especially as it became even more widely read in the late-20th century,. 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. What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? 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. 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 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. There are exceptions, and I thank God that there are. be warned! Of this sort of change they are always strongly in favor. For who is there so cold, that a nations sympathy could not warm him? Must we allow symbols of racism on public land? There is blasphemy in the thought. He faults America for utter hypocrisy and betrayal of those values in maintaining the institution of slavery. 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. 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. Douglass details the hardships past Americans once endured when they were members of British colonies and validates their feelings of ill treatment. Keidrick Roy, the host of the virtual reading event. He expresses his belief in the speech that he and other slaves are fighting the same fight in terms of wishing to be free that White Americans, the ancestors of the white people he is addressing, fought seventy years earlier. Youll never experience a black hole, but Avi Loeb can help you imagine one, We need individual events like reading Douglass, but we also need to be thinking about ways to extend this conversation over the long term., Level of cannabis use could determine post-op outcomes, Historian says Fla. dispute shows why AP class in African American studies is needed, Why Church Committee alums urged new House panel to avoid partisanship, What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?, Rewriting history to include all of it this time. And it also imposed severe penalties on anyone who helped enslaved people to escape. They perambulate the country, and crowd the highways of the nation, with droves of human stock. Douglass also stresses the view that slaves and free Americans are equal in nature. He wrote a glowing letter of encouragement to Harriet Tubman, which served as the preface to Sarah Bradfords 1869 biography about Tubmans life. Your broad republican domain is hunting ground for men. 2. The Act also denied suspected slaves trial by jury or even the ability to testify on their own behalf in court. See this drove sold and separated forever; and never forget the deep, sad sobs that arose from that scattered multitude. I will not equivocate; I will not excuse;. I am also hosting a summer reading and discussion series called Race, Fragility, and Anti-Racism through the Somerville Museum and the City on a Hill network of local churches. The fiat of the Almighty, Let there be Light, has not yet spent its force. [28][29] The head of the organization responsible for the memorial speculated that it was vandalized in response to the removal of Confederate monuments in the wake of the George Floyd protests.[30]. He validates the feelings of injustice the Founders felt then juxtaposes their experiences with vivid descriptions of the harshness of slavery.[21]. that he is the rightful owner of his own body? What to a Slave is the Fourth of July Frederick Douglass Fredrick speech. 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? That people contented themselves under the shadow of Abrahams great name, while they repudiated the deeds which made his name great. After this, he turns his attention to the church. And instead of being the honest men I have before declared them to be, they were the veriest imposters that ever practiced on mankind. To all inspiring motives, to noble deeds which can be gained from the past, we are welcome. 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. 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: Frederick Douglass delivered his famous speech at the Corinthian Hall in Rochester, NY, on July 5th, 1852. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? That which is inhuman, cannot be divine! With this product, you can choose to either have your students read the entire speech and annotate and analyze Douglass' rhetorical devices or you can choose to have your students read shorter excerpts from the speech and do an abbreviated annotation and analysis of rhetorical devices. ARI . We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. 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. [20]:344. Her speed had faltered under the weight of her child and her chains! Who so stolid and selfish, that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nations jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? But, with that blindness which seems to be the unvarying characteristic of tyrants, since Pharaoh and his hosts were drowned in the Red Sea. Many of its most eloquent Divines. "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? 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. your republican politics, not less than your republican religion, are flagrantly inconsistent. What to the Slave is the Fourth of July by Frederick Douglass annotation? 00 Comments Please sign inor registerto post comments. There, see the old man, with locks thinned and gray. when ye make many prayers, I will not hear. $ 3.60. The well-known speech was previously known as The Meaning of July the Fourth for the Negro. Later, the speech was re-titled based on Douglasss question, What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?. Is that a question for Republicans? 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? Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to. The founding fathers left black people and women out of these rights for "everyone." Oppression makes a wise man mad. 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. 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. Born into slavery around 1818, Douglass became a key leader of the abolitionist. Yea! I lived on Philpot Street, Fells 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. 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. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. The iron shoe, and crippled foot of China must be seen, in contrast with nature. Douglass then pivots to the present, stating that "We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future". What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? In his speech, "The Hypocrisy of American Slavery . 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 mens souls. He says that, if anything, many churches actually stand behind slavery and support the continued existence of the institution. 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. The British accomplished this through religion or more specifically, the church. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future, Douglass said. Hear his savage yells and his blood-chilling oaths, as he hurries on his affrighted captives! [5], A statue of Douglass erected in Rochester in 2018 was torn down on July 5, 2020the 168th anniversary of the speech. 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