frederick douglass speech transcript frederick douglass speech transcript

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 interest a nations jubilee. WebOn December 3, 1860, Frederick Douglass and a group of fellow abolitionists met at the Tremont Temple Baptist Church in Boston for a discussion centered around the following The population of the country, at the time, stood at the insignificant number of three millions. It is a fact, that whatever makes for the wealth or for the reputation of Americans, and can be had cheap! Racist Ex-University Of Kentucky 'Karen' Sophia Rosing Is Charged For Assaulting Black Student. In a final celebratory post for Black History Month 2023, it is worth returning to the 1883 Douglass Banquet. WebAn excerpt from the 1847 Frederick Douglass speech given for the anniversary of the American Anti-Slavery Society. 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! 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. Their statesmanship looked beyond the passing moment, and stretched away in strength into the distant future. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the lame man leap as an hart.. Friends and citizens, I need not enter further into the causes which led to this anniversary. O! WebIn the late 1860sat a moment of great hope for the promise of equality under the lawthe famed orator and once-enslaved abolitionist Frederick Douglass took his Our Composite Nation speech on the road to argue for a plural American democracy. From the Potomac to the Delaware was a journey of many days. Read its preamble, consider its purposes. 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. The iron shoe, and crippled foot of China must be seen, in contrast with nature. The fiat of the Almighty, Let there be Light, has not yet spent its force. Speech-to-Text API for pre-recorded audio, powered by the worlds leading speech recognition engine. Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has stronger nerves than I have. 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. There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, who does not know that slavery is wrong for him. Nobody doubts it. 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. Feeling themselves harshly and unjustly treated by the home government, your fathers, like men of honesty, and men of spirit, earnestly sought redress. 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. Easily integrate Rev using our robust APIs to start building your product quickly. The blessings in which you this day rejoice are not enjoyed in common. 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. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation Babylon, whose crimes towering up to heaven with thrown down by the breadth of the almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin. Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who Ever ready to drink, to treat, and to gamble. Your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless, your shouts of Liberty and equality, hallow mocked, your prayers and hymns your sermons and Thanksgivings with all your religious parade in solemnity are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, a thin veil to cover up crimes, which would disgrace a nation of savages. 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. They who did so were accounted in their day, plotters of mischief, agitators and rebels, dangerous men. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost. in preference to the gospel,as preached by those Divines! They form the staple of your national poetry and eloquence. They, that can, may. 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! The Bible addresses all such persons as scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, who pay tithe ofmint, anise,andcumin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith.. Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? Your fathers staked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, on the cause of their country. I take it, therefore, that it is not presumption in a private citizen to form an opinion of that instrument. The propriety of the nation must be startled. WebFrederick Douglass, July 5, 1852 INTRODUCTION (Exordium) 1. 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. The manhood of the slave is conceded. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. Frederick Douglass: (04:09) Its deeply moving to hear Douglass defend the honor of Black soldiers in his 1863 speech, The Proclamation And a Negro Army, read by Colman Domingo, while his final speech, 1894s Lessons of the Hour, lays out the crucial steps toward achieving equality that have yet to be followed today.The actor selected to read these words is Oh! 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. 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? Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. I say it with a sad sense of disparity between us. The timid and the prudent (as has been intimated) of that day, were, of course, shocked and alarmed by it. The message of Frederick Douglasss 1852 speech on the contradiction of Americas just ideals and unjust realities endures. Oppression makes a wise man mad. An American judge gets ten dollars for every victim he consigns to slavery, and five, when he fails to do so. Where these go, may also go the merciless slave-hunter. Frederick Douglass, circa 1879. Difference between Rittenhouse and McMichael-Bryan verdicts? Frederick Douglass delivered his famous speech What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? in 1852, drawing parallels between the Revolutionary War and the fight to abolish slavery. 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. There, the question of emancipation was a high religious question. Your fathers were wise men, and if they did not go mad, they became restive under this treatment. 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? 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. had I the ability, and could I reach the nations ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. Tell me citizens, WHERE, under the sun, you can witness a spectacle more fiendish and shocking. 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. On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? That point is conceded already. Convert your audio or video into 99% accurate text by a professional. On the other hand it will be found to contain principles and purposes, entirely hostile to the existence of slavery. 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. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. Who can reason on such a proposition? Transcripts & captions for a better media workflow. We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future. They hate all changes, but silver, gold and copper change! Thu 5 Jul 2018 07.00 EDT Last modified on Wed 24 Jul 2019 11.58 EDT. Frederick Douglass: (03:37) They showed forbearance; but that they knew its limits. Such a declaration of agreement on my part would not be worth much to anybody. By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. In the summer of 2020, the U.S. commemorated Independence Day amid nationwide We thank you for taking the time to watch this community reading of Frederick Douglasss What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? Source: Blight, David. Is a matter, the set with great difficulty involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard to understand? You may well cherish the memory of such men. Is it that slavery is not divine, that God did not establish it, that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? He rose from the shackles of slavery to become an author, newspaper publisher, and respected abolitionist. 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. 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? Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetual remembrance. Fellow-citizens! The drove moves tardily. Is it not astonishing that while we are plowing, planting and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metal 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 we are engaged in all the enterprises, common to other men, digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific feeding sheep and cattle on the hillside, living, moving, acting, thinking, planting, living in families as husbands, wives, and children, and above all confessing and worshiping the Christian God and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave. I have better employment for my time and strength than such arguments would imply. I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people! For 186 years this doctrine of national independence has shaken the globeand it remains the most powerful force anywhere in the world today. You could instruct me in regard to them. It was, Milloy continued, a critique of a nation that claimed to hold dear the principles of freedom, justice and equality even as it enslaved black people.. Where these are, man is not sacred. Hear his savage yells and his blood-chilling oaths, as he hurries on his affrighted captives! WebBoth anniversaries remind us that the fight for independence and equality did not end in the 18th century - a theme highlighted in Douglass speech. These gentlemen have, as I think, fully and clearly vindicated the Constitution from any design to support slavery for an hour. Section 107, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. 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 ofHimby whom they professed to be called to the ministry, deliberately taught us, against the example or the Hebrews and against the remonstrance of the Apostles, they teachthat we ought to obey mans law before the law of God. It was demanded, in the name of humanity, and according to the law of the living God. And it would go hard with that politician who presumed to solicit the votes of the people without inscribing this motto on his banner. They succeeded; and to-day you reap the fruits of their success. That, which is inhuman cannot be divine. That people contented themselves under the shadow of Abrahams great name, while they repudiated the deeds which made his name great. Fellow citizens, this murderous traffic is, today, in active operation in this boasted republic. The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong city. 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.