Part One: What is his opinion of the
American Founders? What characteristics does he praise about them? What is
their most significant accomplishment?
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.
…………
On the 2nd of July,
1776, the old Continental Congress, to the dismay of the lovers of ease, and
the worshipers of property, clothed that dreadful idea [i.e., the idea of total
separation of the colonies from the crown] 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.
………
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 defense. 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.
Part Two Questions
(Answer only ONE of the following questions):
- In the second part of
the speech, Douglass turns to the present and his own feelings about the 4th
of July celebration. What are these?
- Next, Douglass
presents a picture of American slavery. From what point of view does he
look at it?
- How does he show that
everyone in America, North and South, views enslaved Africans as human
beings
- What feelings is he
appealing to in his audience in this section?
- What is the
significance of the image of the reptile in the bosom on the nation at the
end of this section?
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 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 light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This
Fourth 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, towering up to heaven, were thrown down by
the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrevocable 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 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 acknowledgment 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, then 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 ciphering, 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 employment 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
passed.
At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O!
had I the ability, and could 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 denunciation 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 the 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 ...
Part Three: Given all that he has said
in his speech, why does Douglass conclude on an optimistic note for black
Americans? What reasons does he give for optimism?
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 practiced 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.
"[L]et 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."
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 track 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 fight 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 fight, 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 fights 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.
