frederick douglass speech transcript
Create a better, more engaging experience for every student. 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. It was a startling idea, much more so, than we, at this distance of time, regard it. Who so stolid and selfish that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nations Jubilee when the chains of servitude have been torn from his limbs? 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. WebFrederick Douglass, July 5, 1852 INTRODUCTION (Exordium) 1. 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. Translated on-screen subtitles for videos. Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! 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. This is a primary source reading analysis of Frederick Douglass' famous speech. Senator Berrien tell us that the Constitution is the fundamental law, that which controls all others. Noble men may be found, scattered all over these Northern States, of whom Henry Ward Beecher of Brooklyn, Samuel J. In a final celebratory post for Black History Month 2023, it is worth returning to the 1883 Douglass Banquet. They perambulate the country, and crowd the highways of the nation, with droves of human stock. They hate all changes, but silver, gold and copper change! I will not equivocate. 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. But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. 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. My soul sickens at the sight. Not for thieves and robbers, enemies of society, merely, but for men guilty of no crime. WATCH VIDEO: Should Black Americans Celebrate Independence Day? That is a branch of knowledge in which you feel, perhaps, a much deeper interest than your speaker. 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. From Boston to London is now a holiday excursion. In a very telling sign, the fateful words of Frederick Douglass from a speech he delivered 170 years ago still resonate very much in 2022 as Black people in America continue the fight for the same kind of equality that the legendary abolitionist was demanding back in the mid-19th century. Frederick Douglass: (03:37) It esteems sacrifice above mercy; psalm-singing above right doing; solemn meetings above practical righteousness. You have already declared it. 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, andlet the weight of twenty millions crush and destroy it forever! That people contented themselves under the shadow of Abrahams great name, while they repudiated the deeds which made his name great. Follow the drove to New Orleans. I think that, in whatever else I may be deficient, I have That which is inhuman, cannot be divine! In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak. I remember, also, that, as a people, Americans are remarkably familiar with all facts which make in their own favor. They were quiet men; but they did not shrink from agitating against oppression. In glaring violation of justice, in shameless disregard of the forms of administering law, in cunning arrangement to entrap the defenseless, and in diabolical intent, this Fugitive Slave Law stands alone in the annals of tyrannical legislation. The accepted time with God and his cause is the ever-living now. To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding. 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. Speech-to-Text API for pre-recorded audio, powered by the worlds leading speech recognition engine. The time for such argument is past. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery. I answer: a day that reveals to him more than all other days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the lame man leap as an hart.. 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 in sacrilegious irony. Yet they persevered. These wretched people are to be sold singly, or in lots, to suit purchasers. In the summer of 2020, the U.S. commemorated Independence Day amid nationwide Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? Fellow-citizens! Heavy billows, like mountains in the distance, disclose to the leeward huge forms of flinty rocks! 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. Fellow citizens, above your national tumultuous joy I hear the mournful wail of millions whose chains heavy and grievous yesterday are today rendered more intolerable by the jubilant shouts that reach them. Your fathers esteemed the English Government as the home government; and England as the fatherland. The ear-piercing fife and the stirring drum unite their accents with the ascending peal of a thousand church bells. I am glad, fellow-citizens, that your nation is so young. I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people! Web" was a speech delivered by Frederick Douglass on July 5, 1852, at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York, at a meeting organized by the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery These men were generally well dressed men, and very captivating in their manners. No, I will not. The document is in the form of a Google Docs so it has a translation tool, dictionary, and voice to text. The power is co-extensive with the Star-Spangled Banner and American Christianity. 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! They may also rise in wrath and fury, and bear away, on their angry waves, the accumulated wealth of years of toil and hardship. be warned! 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. welcome anything! What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible being? Your lawmakers have commanded all good citizens to engage in this hellish sport. 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: Th oppressd shall vilely bend the knee. 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. 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. The 4th of July is the first great fact in your nations history the very ring-bolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny. Hear his savage yells and his blood-chilling oaths, as he hurries on his affrighted captives! Then would my task be light and my burden easy and delightful? Yea! Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? 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. Your cause would be much more likely to succeed. Frederick Douglass: (02:57) Sign up for NewsOne's email newsletter! Frederick Douglass: (06:03) Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. You have already declared it. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, not by me. They felt themselves the victims of grievous wrongs, wholly incurable in their colonial capacity. 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? What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? Easily integrate Rev using our robust APIs to start building your product quickly. Africa must rise and put on her yet unwoven garment. For my part, I would say, welcome infidelity! 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. 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. As noted here, that banquet was attended by prominent 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 toour father. Alas! May of Syracuse, and my esteemed friend (Rev. Douglass gave this speech to a group of abolitionists 168 years ago. May he not hope that high lessons of wisdom, of justice and of truth, will yet give direction to her destiny? 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. Roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world. Oceans no longer divide, but link nations together. that gash on her shoulder tells her to move on. The whole scene, as I look back to it, was simple, dignified and sublime. 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. Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? Is it that slavery is not divine, that God did not establish it, that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? Many of its most eloquent Divines. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. 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.