where did douglass make his speech "what to a slave is the fourth of july"

Speech communication by Frederick Douglass

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Frederick Douglass circa 1852

The 1852 pamphlet printing of the speech

"What to the Slave Is the 4th of July?"^{[one] [two]} is the title now given to a voice communication by Frederick Douglass delivered on July 5, 1852, at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York, at a meeting organized by the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Gild.^[3] The speech communication is perhaps the most widely known of all of Frederick Douglass' writings save his autobiographies. Many copies of i department of it, kickoff in paragraph 32, have been circulated online.^[4] Due to this and the variant titles given to it in various places, and the fact that information technology is called a July 4th Oration but was really delivered on July 5, some confusion has arisen about the engagement and contents of the speech. The spoken communication has since been published nether the above championship in The Frederick Douglass Papers, Serial One, Vol. ii. (1982) ^[5]

While referring to the celebrations of the Independence Twenty-four hour period in the The states the day earlier, the voice communication uses biting irony and biting rhetoric, and acute textual analysis of the Constitution and Annunciation of Independence, and the Christian Bible, to advance a values-based argument confronting the connected existence of Slavery in the United States.^[vi] Douglass orates that positive statements almost American values, such as liberty, citizenship, and freedom, were an offense to the enslaved population of the United States because of their lack of freedom, liberty, and citizenship. Equally well, Douglass referred not just to the captivity of enslaved people, but to the merciless exploitation and the cruelty and torture that slaves were subjected to in the United States.^[vii] Rhetoricians R.50. Heath and D. Waymer called this topic the "paradox of the positive" because it highlights how something positive and meant to be positive can also exclude individuals.^[7]

Views expressed in the speech [edit]

The 4th of July Address, delivered in Corinthian Hall, past Frederick Douglass, is published on practiced paper, and makes a neat pamphlet of 40 pages. The 'Address' may be had at this office, price ten cents, a unmarried copy, or six dollars per hundred.

—Advertizement for the pamphlet of Douglass' voice communication from the July 12, 1852 edition of Frederick Douglass' Paper (formerly The North Star)

Douglass said that the fathers of the nation were great statesmen, and that the values expressed in the Declaration of Independence were "saving principles", and the "ringbolt of your nations destiny", stating, "stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever toll." However, he maintained that slaves owed nothing to and had no positive feelings towards the founding of the United States. He faulted America for utter hypocrisy and betrayal of those values in maintaining the institution of slavery.

What take I, or those I represent, to exercise with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to u.s.?...What, to the American slave, is your quaternary 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.^[8]

Douglass also stresses the view that slaves and free Americans are equal in nature. He expresses his conventionalities in the oral communication that he and other slaves are fighting the same fight in terms of wishing to be gratuitous that White Americans, the ancestors of the white people he is addressing, fought seventy years earlier.

They were statesmen, patriots, and heroes, and…with them, justice, liberty, and humanity were final; not slavery and oppression.^{[nine] : 340}

Douglass also says that if the residents of America believe that slaves are "men",^{[9] : 342} they should be treated every bit such. True Christians, according to Douglass, should not stand idly by while the rights and liberty of others are stripped away.

Douglass denounces the churches for betraying their own biblical and Christian values. He is outraged by the lack of responsibility and indifference towards slavery that many sects accept taken effectually the nation. He says that, if annihilation, many churches actually stand behind slavery and support the connected beingness of the institution. Douglass equates this to existence worse than many other things that are banned, in detail, books and plays that are banned for infidelity.

They convert the very name of organized religion into an engine of tyranny and barbarous cruelty, and serve to confirm more infidels, in this age, than all the pagan writings of Thomas Paine, Voltaire, and Bolingbroke put together take done.^{[nine] : 344}

Withal, Douglass claims that this can change. The United States does not have to stay the way it is. The state can progress similar it has before, transforming from being a colony of a far-away rex to an contained nation. Great Britain, and many other countries of that time, had already abolished slavery from its territories. The British accomplished this through faith or more than specifically, the church. Because the church stood backside the decision to cancel the selling and ownership of people, so did the rest of the state. Douglass argues that religion is the center of the problem but besides the main solution to it.

Douglass believed that slavery could exist eliminated with the back up of the church building, and too with the reexamination of what the Bible was really saying.

You profess to believe, "that, of one blood, God fabricated all nations of men to dwell on the face of all the earth," and hath allowable all men everywhere to dearest one some other; nevertheless you notoriously hate (and glory in your hatred) all men whose skins are non colored like your own.^{[9] : 345}

Douglass wants his audience to realize that they are not living up to their proclaimed beliefs. He talks about how they, being Americans, are proud of their state and their religion and how they rejoice in the name of liberty and freedom and however they do not offer those things to millions of their country's residents.^{[nine] : 345}

He employs irony to do a lot of this work. Douglass spends fourth dimension celebrating the efforts of the founding fathers of America for fighting back confronting the tyranny of England when he says^[10]

Oppression makes a wise man mad. Your fathers were wise men, and if they did non go mad, they became restive nether this handling. They felt themselves the victims of grievous wrongs, wholly incurable in their colonial capacity. With brave men at that place is always a remedy for oppression. Merely here, the idea of a total separation of the colonies from the crown was built-in! It was a startling idea, much more so, than we, at this distance of time, regard it. The timid and the prudent (equally has been intimated) of that 24-hour interval, were, of grade, shocked and alarmed by it.

Douglass details the hardships past Americans once endured when they were members of British colonies and validates their feelings of ill handling. He does all this to bear witness the irony of their inability to empathise with the Blackness people they oppressed in cruel ways that the forefathers they valorized never experienced. He validates the feelings of injustice the Founders felt then juxtaposes their experiences with vivid descriptions of the harshness of slavery when he says:^[11]

The crack you heard, was the audio of the slave-whip; the scream you heard, was from the woman you saw with the babe. Her speed had faltered under the weight of her kid and her chains! that gash on her shoulder tells her to move on. Follow the drove to New Orleans. Attend the auction; encounter men examined like horses; see the forms of women rudely and brutally exposed to the shocking gaze of American slave-buyers. Meet this collection sold and separated forever; and never forget the deep, sad sobs that arose from that scattered multitude. Tell me citizens, WHERE, under the sun, you lot can witness a spectacle more than fiendish and shocking. Yet this is but a glance at the American slave-trade, as it exists, at this moment, in the ruling function of the United States.

Essentially, Douglass criticizes his audience's pride for a nation that claims to value freedom though it is composed of people who continuously commit atrocities confronting Blacks. It is said that America is built on the thought of liberty and freedom, but Douglass tells his audience that more than anything, it is built on inconsistencies and hypocrisies that have been disregarded for so long they appear to exist truths. According to Douglass, these inconsistencies have made the Usa the object of mockery and often contempt among the various nations of the earth.^{[9] : 346} To prove testify of these inconsistencies, every bit one historian noted, during the speech Douglass claims that the United States Constitution is an abolitionist certificate and non a pro-slavery document.^[12] Douglass said:^{[13] [xiv]}

An ad for the occasion of the speech.

Beau-citizens! there is no matter in respect to which, the people of the North accept immune themselves to be so ruinously imposed upon, as that of the pro-slavery character of the Constitution. In that instrument I concur in that location is neither warrant, license, nor sanction of the hateful thing; but, interpreted as information technology 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.

In this respect, Douglass' views converged with that of Abraham Lincoln's^[xv] in that those politicians who were saying that the Constitution was a justification for their beliefs in regard to slavery were doing and then dishonestly.

All the same, if slavery were abolished and equal rights given to all, that would no longer be the case. In the end, Douglass wants to continue his hope and faith in humanity high. Douglass declares that true freedom can non exist in America if Black people are still enslaved at that place and is adamant that the end of slavery is near. Knowledge is becoming more readily available, Douglass said, and presently the American people will open their eyes to the atrocities they accept been inflicting on their fellow Americans.

Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the earth. It makes its pathway over and nether the ocean, as well as on the world.^{[nine] : 346}

Subsequently views on American independence [edit]

The spoken communication "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" was delivered in the decade preceding the American Ceremonious State of war, which lasted from 1861 to 1865 and achieved the abolition of slavery. During the Civil War, Douglass said that since Massachusetts had been the first state to join the Patriot crusade during the American Revolutionary War, black men should get to Massachusetts to enlist in the Union Army.^[16] After the Civil War, Douglass said that "we" had achieved a great thing by gaining American independence during the American Revolutionary State of war, though he said information technology was non as great every bit what was accomplished by the Civil War.^[17]

Legacy [edit]

In the United States, the voice communication is widely taught in history and English classes in high schoolhouse and college.^[six] American studies professor Andrew Southward. Bibby argues that because many of the editions produced for educational use are abridged, they frequently misrepresent Douglass's original through omission or editorial focus.^[vi]

A statue of Douglass erected in Rochester in 2018 was torn down on July 5, 2020—the 168th anniversary of the speech.^{[18] [19]} The head of the organisation 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, though there is no testify to prove this argument. ^[20]

Notable readings [edit]

The speech has been notably performed or read by important figures, including the following:

• James Earl Jones^[six]
• Morgan Freeman^{[half dozen]}
• Danny Glover^[6]
• Ossie Davis^[vi]
• Baratunde Thurston^[21]
• Five of his descendants^[22]

References [edit]

1. ^ Douglass, Frederick (1852). Frederick Douglass, Oration, Delivered in Corinthian Hall, Rochester, July 5th, 1852. Rochester: Lee, Isle of mann & Co., 1852. Rochester, NY: Lee, Isle of man & Co.
2. ^ Douglass, Frederick (July v, 1852). ""What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?"". Retrieved January 2, 2022.
3. ^ McFeely, William S. (1991). Frederick Douglass . New York: W.W. Norton & Company. pp. 172–173. ISBN978-0-393-02823-2.
4. ^ The paragraphing referenced hither is taken from an edition of the speech at RhetoricalGoddess
5. ^ Douglass, Frederick (1982). Blassingame, John W. (ed.). The Frederick Douglass Papers, Series One: Speeches Debates, and Interviews. Vol. 2, 1847-54. New Haven: Yale Academy Press. p. 359-387.
6. ^ ^{a b c d due east f g} Bibby, Andrew S. (July 2, 2014). "'What to the Slave Is the 4th of July?': Frederick Douglass's fiery Independence Day speech is widely read today, merely not so widely understood". Wall Street Journal . Retrieved Baronial thirteen, 2015.
7. ^ ^{a b} Heath, Robert L.; Waymer, Damion (2009). "Activist Public Relations and the Paradox of the Positive: A Case Written report of Frederick Douglass's Fourth of July Address". Rhetorical and Critical Approaches to Public Relations II: 192–215. ISBN9781135220877.
8. ^ Battistoni, Richard. The American Constitutional Experience: Selected Readings & Supreme Court Opinions, pp. 66-73 (Kendall Chase, 2000).
9. ^ ^{a b c d east f m} Douglass, Frederick (1852). "Oration, Delivered in Corinthian Hall, Rochester, July 5, 1852". In Harris, Leonard; Pratt, Scott L.; Waters, Anne S. (eds.). American Philosophies: An Anthology. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell (published 2002). ISBN978-0-631-21002-3.
10. ^ ""What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?"". Pedagogy American History . Retrieved 2021-05-22 .
11. ^ ""What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?"". Teaching American History . Retrieved 2021-05-22 .
12. ^ Colaiaco, James A. (March 24, 2015). Frederick Douglass and the Quaternary of July. St. Martin's Publishing Group. ISBN9781466892781 – via Google Books.
13. ^ "Exceptionalism and the left". Los Angeles Times. Dec 13, 2010.
14. ^ African Americans In Congress: A Documentary History, by Eric Freedman and Stephen A, Jones, 2008, p. 39
15. ^ Gorski, Philip (February half dozen, 2017). American Covenant: A History of Civil Religion from the Puritans to the Nowadays. Princeton Academy Press. ISBN9781400885008 – via Google Books.
16. ^ Douglass, Frederick. Frederick Douglass on Slavery and the Civil War: Selections from His Writings, p. 46 (Dover Publications, 2014): "We can get at the throat of treason and slavery through the Land of Massachusetts. She was first in the State of war of Independence; first to interruption the chains of her slaves; first to make the black man equal before the law; commencement to admit colored children to her common schools, and she was starting time to answer with her blood the alarm cry of the nation, when its capital was menaced by rebels."
17. ^ Douglass, Frederick. Autobiographies, p. 765 (Library of America, 1994): "It was a keen matter to achieve American Independence when we numbered three millions, simply it was a greater thing to relieve this state from dismemberment and ruin when it numbered thirty millions."
18. ^ Schwartz, Matthew Due south. (July 6, 2020). "Frederick Douglass Statue Torn Down On Anniversary Of Famous Speech communication". NPR. Archived from the original on July 7, 2020. Retrieved July seven, 2020.
19. ^ Brown, Deneen L. (July half-dozen, 2020). "Frederick Douglass statue torn down in Rochester, Northward.Y., on anniversary of his famous Fourth of July spoken language". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on July 7, 2020. Retrieved July 7, 2020.
20. ^ Pengelly, Martin (July 6, 2020). "Frederick Douglass statue torn downwardly on anniversary of groovy speech". The Guardian. Archived from the original on July 7, 2020. Retrieved July 7, 2020. Speaking to WROC, [Carvin] Eison asked: 'Is this some type of retaliation because of the national fever over Confederate monuments right now? Very disappointing, it'due south beyond disappointing.'
21. ^ Thurston, Baratunde (July four, 2020) [Recorded July i, 2016]. Baratunde Delivers United states of america Co-Founder Frederick Douglass 1852 Oral communication: 'What To The Slave Is The 4th of July' . Facebook. Directed past Tara Garver Mikhael. Brooklyn Public Library. Retrieved July seven, 2020.
22. ^ "VIDEO: Frederick Douglass' Descendants Deliver His 'Fourth Of July' Voice communication". NPR.org . Retrieved 2021-05-22 .

Further reading [edit]

• Bizzell, Patricia (1997-02-01). "The 4th of July and the 22nd of December: The Part of Cultural Archives in Persuasion, every bit Shown past Frederick Douglass and William Apess". Higher Composition and Communication. 48 (one): 44–60. doi:10.2307/358770. ISSN 0010-096X. JSTOR 358770.
• Douglass, Frederick. A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. New York: Dover Publications, Inc. 1845.
• Douglass, Frederick, ed. Stauffer, John. Random Business firm. 2003. My Bondage and My Freedom: Part I - Life as a Slave, Part Ii - Life equally a Freeman, with an introduction by James McCune Smith. New York: Miller, Orton & Mulligan. 1855.
• Gates, Jr. Henry Louis, ed. Frederick Douglass, Autobiography. New York: Library of America. 1994.
• Oakes, James. The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. 2007.

External links [edit]

• Frederick Douglass' Descendants Deliver His '4th of July' Speech (video)
• Kickoff edition of the publication of Douglass' speech
• Give-and-take of the pamphlet from The Public Domain Review
• What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? public domain audiobook at LibriVox

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_to_the_Slave_Is_the_Fourth_of_July%3F

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