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Frederick Douglass on the Declaration of the Independence
of the United States - July 5, 1852
Frederick Douglass, "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" 5 July 1852
Occasion: Meeting sponsored by the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery
Society, Rochester Hall, Rochester, N.Y. To illustrate the full shame of slavery, Douglass delivered a speech that took aim at the pieties of the nation -- the cherished memories of its revolution, its principles of liberty, and its moral and religious
foundation. The Fourth of July, a day celebrating freedom, was used by Douglass to remind his audience of liberty's unfinished business.
Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience without a quailing
sensation, has stronger nerves than I have. I do not remember ever to have appeared as a speaker before any assembly more shrinkingly, nor with greater
distrust of my ability, than I do this day. A feeling has crept over me, quite unfavorable to the exercise of my limited powers of speech. The task before me is one which requires much previous thought and study for its proper performance. I know that apologies of this sort are generally considered flat and unmeaning. I trust, however, that mine will not be so considered. Should I seem at ease, my appearance would much misrepresent me. The little experience I
have had in addressing public meetings, in country school houses, avails me nothing on the present occasion.
The papers and placards say, that I am to deliver a 4th [of] July
oration. This certainly sounds large, and out of the common way, for it is true that I have often had the privilege to speak in this beautiful
Hall, and to address many who now honor me with their presence. But neither their familiar faces, nor the perfect gage I think I have of Corinthian Hall, seems to free me from embarrassment.
The fact is, ladies and gentlemen, the distance between this platform and the slave plantation, from which I escaped, is
considerable — and the difficulties to be overcome in getting from the latter to the former, are by no means slight. That I am here to-day is, to me, a matter of astonishment as well as of gratitude. You will not,
therefore, be surprised, if in what I have to say, I evince no elaborate
preparation, nor grace my speech with any high sounding exordium. 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.
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.
Fellow-citizens, I shall not presume to dwell at length on the
associations that cluster about this day. The simple story of it is that, 76 years ago, the people of this country were British subjects. The style and title of
your "sovereign people" (in which you now glory) was not then born. You were under the British Crown . Your
fathers esteemed the English Government as the home government; and England as the fatherland. This
home government, you know, although a considerable distance from your home, did, in the exercise of its parental prerogatives, impose upon its colonial children, such restraints, burdens and limitations, as, in its
mature judgement, it deemed wise, right and proper.
But, your fathers, who had not adopted the fashionable idea of this day, of the infallibility of government, and
the absolute character of its acts, presumed to differ from the home government in respect to the wisdom and
the justice of some of those burdens and restraints. 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. I scarcely need say, fellow-citizens, that my opinion of those measures fully accords with that of your fathers. Such a declaration of agreement on my part would not be worth much to anybody. It
would, certainly, prove nothing, as to what part I might have taken, had I lived during the great controversy of
1776. To say now that America was right, and England wrong, is exceedingly easy. Everybody can say it; the
dastard, not less than the noble brave, can flippantly discant on the tyranny of England towards the American
Colonies. 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 men's souls. They who did so were accounted in their day, plotters of
mischief, agitators and rebels, dangerous men. To side with the right, against the wrong, with the weak
against the strong, and with the oppressed against the oppressor! here lies the merit, and the one which, of
all others, seems unfashionable in our day. The cause of liberty may be stabbed by the men who glory in the
deeds of your fathers. But, to proceed.
Feeling themselves harshly and unjustly treated by the home government, your fathers, like men of honesty,
and men of spirit, earnestly sought redress. They petitioned and remonstrated; they did so in a decorous,
respectful, and loyal manner. Their conduct was wholly unexceptionable. This, however, did not answer the
purpose. They saw themselves treated with sovereign indifference, coldness and scorn. Yet they persevered.
They were not the men to look back.
As the sheet anchor takes a firmer hold, when the ship is tossed by the storm, so did the cause of your
fathers grow stronger, as it breasted the chilling blasts of kingly displeasure. The greatest and best of British
statesmen admitted its justice, and the loftiest eloquence of the British Senate came to its support. But, with
that blindness which seems to be the unvarying characteristic of tyrants, since Pharaoh and his hosts were
drowned in the Red Sea, the British Government persisted in the exactions complained of.
The madness of this course, we believe, is admitted now, even by England; but we fear the lesson is wholly
lost on our present rulers.
Oppression makes a wise man mad. Your fathers were wise men, and if they did not go mad, they became
restive under this treatment. They felt themselves the victims of grievous wrongs, wholly incurable in their
colonial capacity. With brave men there is always a remedy for oppression. Just here, the idea of a total separation of the colonies from the crown was born! It was a startling idea, much more so, than we, at this
distance of time, regard it. The timid and the prudent (as has been intimated) of that day, were, of course,
shocked and alarmed by it.
Such people lived then, had lived before, and will, probably, ever have a place on this planet; and their
course, in respect to any great change, (no matter how great the good to be attained, or the wrong to be
redressed by it), may be calculated with as much precision as can be the course of the stars. They hate all
changes, but silver, gold and copper change! Of this sort of change they are always strongly in favor.
These people were called tories in the days of your fathers; and the appellation, probably, conveyed the
same idea that is meant by a more modern, though a somewhat less euphonious term, which we often find in
our papers, applied to some of our old politicians.
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.
On the 2d of July, 1776, the old Continental Congress, to the
dismay of the lovers of ease, and the worshipers of property, clothed that dreadful idea 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.
The coming into being of a nation, in any circumstances, is an interesting event. But, besides general
considerations, there were peculiar circumstances which make the advent of this republic an event of special
attractiveness.
The whole scene, as I look back to it, was simple, dignified and sublime.
The population of the country, at the time, stood at the insignificant number of three millions. The country was
poor in the munitions of war. The population was weak and scattered, and the country a wilderness
unsubdued. There were then no means of concert and combination, such as exist now. Neither steam nor lightning had then been reduced to order and discipline. From the Potomac to the Delaware was a journey of
many days. Under these, and innumerable other disadvantages, your fathers declared for liberty and
independence and triumphed.
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 defence. 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.
Of this fundamental work, this day is the anniversary. Our eyes are met with demonstrations of joyous
enthusiasm. Banners and pennants wave exultingly on the breeze. The din of business, too, is hushed. Even
Mammon seems to have quitted his grasp on this day. The ear-piercing fife and the stirring drum unite their
accents with the ascending peal of a thousand church bells. 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 interests nation's jubilee.
Friends and citizens, I need not enter further into the causes which led to this anniversary. Many of you
understand them better than I do. You could instruct me in regard to them. That is a branch of knowledge in
which you feel, perhaps, a much deeper interest than your speaker. The causes which led to the separation
of the colonies from the British crown have never lacked for a tongue. They have all been taught in your
common schools, narrated at your firesides, unfolded from your pulpits, and thundered from your legislative
halls, and are as familiar to you as household words. They form the staple of your national poetry and
eloquence.
I remember, also, that, as a people, Americans are remarkably familiar with all facts which make in their own
favor. This is esteemed by some as a national trait — perhaps a national weakness. It is a fact, that whatever
makes for the wealth or for the reputation of Americans, and can be had cheap! will be found by Americans. I
shall not be charged with slandering Americans, if I say I think the American side of any question may be
safely left in American hands.
I leave, therefore, the great deeds of your fathers to other gentlemen whose claim to have been regularly
descended will be less likely to be disputed than mine!
THE PRESENT.
My business, if I have any here to-day, is with the present. The accepted time with God and his cause is the
ever-living now.
"Trust no future, however pleasant,
Let the dead past bury its dead;
Act, act in the living present,
Heart within, and God overhead."
We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future. To all inspiring
motives, to noble deeds which can be gained from the past, we are welcome. But now is the time, the
important time. Your fathers have lived, died, and have done their work, and have done much of it well. You
live and must die, and you must do your work. You have no right to enjoy a child's share in the labor of your
fathers, unless your children are to be blest by your labors. You have no right to wear out and waste the
hard-earned fame of your fathers to cover your indolence. Sydney Smith tells us that men seldom eulogize the
wisdom and virtues of their fathers, but to excuse some folly or wickedness of their own. This truth is not a
doubtful one. There are illustrations of it near and remote, ancient and modern. It was fashionable, hundreds
of years ago, for the children of Jacob to boast, we have "Abraham to our father," when they had long lost
Abraham's faith and spirit. That people contented themselves under the shadow of Abraham's great name,
while they repudiated the deeds which made his name great. Need I remind you that a similar thing is being
done all over this country to-day? Need I tell you that the Jews are not the only people who built the tombs of
the prophets, and garnished the sepulchres of the righteous? Washington could not die till he had broken the
chains of his slaves. 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 to our father." Alas! that it should be so; yet so it is.
"The evil that men do, lives after them, The good is oft' interred with their bones."
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 this 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 life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth [of] 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, lowering up to heaven, were thrown
down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable 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, tumultous 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 judgement 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 acknowledgement
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, there 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 cyphering, 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 lo 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 employments 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 past.
At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could I 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 denunciations 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 these 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.
INTERNAL SLAVE TRADE.
Take the American slave-trade, which, we are told by the papers, is especially prosperous just now.
Ex-Senator Benton tells us that the price of men was never higher than now. He mentions the fact to show that
slavery is in no danger. This trade is one of the peculiarities of American institutions. It is carried on in all the
large towns and cities in one-half of this confederacy; and millions are pocketed every year, by dealers in this
horrid traffic. In several states, this trade is a chief source of wealth. It is called (in contradistinction to the
foreign slave-trade) "the internal slave trade." It is, probably, called so, too, in
order to divert from it the horror with which the foreign slave-trade is contemplated. That trade has long since been denounced by this government, as piracy. It has been denounced with burning words, from the high places of the nation, as an
execrable traffic. To arrest it, to put an end to it, this nation keeps a squadron, at immense cost, on the coast
of Africa. 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. The duty to extirpate and destroy it, is admitted even by our
DOCTORS OF DIVINITY. 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! 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 American religion. Here you will see men and women reared like swine for the market. You know
what is a swine-drover? I will show you a man-drover. They inhabit all our Southern States. They perambulate the country, and crowd the highways of the nation, with droves of human stock. You will see one of these
human flesh-jobbers, armed with pistol, whip and bowie-knife, driving a company of a hundred men, women,
and children, from the Potomac to the slave market at New Orleans. These wretched people are to be sold
singly, or in lots, to suit purchasers. They are food for the cotton-field, and the deadly sugar-mill. Mark the sad
procession, as it moves wearily along, and the inhuman wretch who drives them. Hear his savage yells and
his blood-chilling oaths, as he hurries on his affrighted captives! There, see the old man, with locks thinned
and gray. 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. See, too, that girl of thirteen, weeping, yes!
weeping, as she thinks of the mother from whom she has been torn! The drove moves tardily. Heat and
sorrow have nearly consumed their strength; suddenly you hear a quick snap, like the discharge of a rifle; the fetters clank, and the chain rattles simultaneously; your ears are saluted with a scream, that seems to have
torn its way to the centre of your soul! The crack you heard, was the sound 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 child and
her chains! that gash on her shoulder tells her to move on. Follow this drove to New Orleans. 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. See this drove 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 can witness a
spectacle more fiendish and shocking. Yet this is but a glance at the American slave-trade, as it exists, at this
moment, in the ruling part of the United States.
I was born amid such sights and scenes. To me the American slave-trade is a terrible reality. When a child,
my soul was often pierced with a sense of its horrors. I lived on Philpot Street, Fell's 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. There was, at that time, a grand
slave mart kept at the head of Pratt Street, by Austin Woldfolk. His agents were sent into every town and
county in Maryland, announcing their arrival, through the papers, and on flaming "hand-bills," headed CASH
FOR NEGROES. These men were generally well dressed men, and very captivating in their manners. Ever
ready to drink, to treat, and to gamble. 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.
The flesh-mongers gather up their victims by dozens, and drive them, chained, to the general depot at
Baltimore. When a sufficient number have been collected here, a ship is chartered, for the purpose of
conveying the forlorn crew to Mobile, or to New Orleans. 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. The anguish of my boyish heart was intense; and I was often
consoled, when speaking to my mistress in the morning, to hear her say that the custom was very wicked;
that she hated to hear the rattle of the chains, and the heart-rending cries. I was glad to find one who
sympathised with me in my horror.
Fellow-citizens, this murderous traffic is, to-day, in active operation in this boasted republic. 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. There I see the tenderest ties ruthlessly broken,
to gratify the lust, caprice and rapacity of the buyers and sellers of men. My soul sickens at the sight.
"Is this the land your Fathers loved,
The freedom which they toiled to win?
Is this the earth whereon they moved?
Are these the graves they slumber in?"
But a still more inhuman, disgraceful, and scandalous state of things remains to be presented.
By an act of the American Congress, not yet two years old, slavery has been nationalized in its most horrible
and revolting form. By that act, Mason & Dixon's line has been obliterated; New York has become as
Virginia; and the power to hold, hunt, and sell men, women, and children as slaves remains no longer a mere
state institution, but is now an institution of the whole United States. The power is co-extensive with the
star-spangled banner and American Christianity. Where these go, may also go the merciless slave-hunter.
Where these are, man is not sacred. He is a bird for the sportsman's gun. By that most foul and fiendish of all
human decrees, the liberty and person of every man are put in peril. Your broad republican domain is hunting
ground for men. Not for thieves and robbers, enemies of society, merely, but for men guilty of no crime. Your
lawmakers have commanded all good citizens to engage in this hellish sport. Your President, your Secretary
of State, your lords, 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. Not fewer than forty Americans have, within the past two
years, been hunted down and, without a moment's warning, hurried away in chains, and consigned to slavery
and excruciating torture. Some of these have had wives and children, dependent on them for bread; but of
this, no account was made. The right of the hunter to his prey stands superior to the right of marriage, and to
all rights in this republic, the rights of God included! For black men there are neither law, justice, humanity, not
religion. The Fugitive Slave Law makes MERCY TO THEM, A CRIME; and bribes the judge who tries them.
An American JUDGE GETS TEN DOLLARS FOR EVERY VICTIM HE CONSIGNS to slavery, and five, when
he fails to do so. The oath of any two villains is sufficient, under this hell-black enactment, to send the most
pious and exemplary black man into the remorseless jaws of slavery! His own testimony is nothing. He can
bring no witnesses for himself. The minister of American justice is bound by the law to hear but one side; and
that side, is the side of the oppressor. Let this damning fact be perpetually told. 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 palpable bribe, and are bound, in deciding in
the case of a man's liberty, hear only his accusers!
In glaring violation of justice, in shameless disregard of the forms of administering law, in cunning
arrangement to entrap the defenceless, and in diabolical intent, this Fugitive Slave Law stands
alone in theannals of tyrannical legislation. 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. If any man in this assembly thinks differently from me in this
matter, and feels able to disprove my statements, I will gladly confront him at any suitable time and place he
may select.
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.
I take this law to be one of the grossest infringements of Christian Liberty, and, if the churches and ministers
of our country were not stupidly blind, or most wickedly indifferent, they, too, would so regard it.
At the very moment that they are thanking God for the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty, and for the right
to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences, they are utterly silent in respect to a law
which robs religion of its chief significance, and makes it utterly worthless to a world lying in wickedness. Did
this law concern the "mint, anise and cummin" — abridge the right to sing psalms, to partake of the
sacrament, or to engage in any of the ceremonies of religion, it would be smitten by the thunder of a thousand
pulpits. A general shout would go up from the church, demanding repeal, repeal, instant repeal! And it would
go hard with that politician who presumed to solicit the votes of the people without inscribing this motto on his
banner. Further, if this demand were not complied with, another Scotland would be added to the history of religious liberty, and the stern old Covenanters would be thrown into the shade. A John Knox would be seen
at every church door, and heard from every pulpit, and Fillmore would have no more quarter than was shown
by Knox, to the beautiful, but treacherous queen Mary of Scotland. The fact that the church of our country, (with fractional exceptions), does not esteem "the Fugitive Slave Law" as a declaration of war against religious
liberty, implies that that church regards religion simply as a form of worship, an empty ceremony, and not a
vital principle, requiring active benevolence, justice, love and good will towards man. It esteems sacrifice
above mercy; psalm-singing above right doing; solemn meetings above practical righteousness. A worship that can be conducted by persons who refuse to give shelter to the houseless, to give bread to the hungry, clothing to the naked, and who enjoin obedience to a law forbidding these acts of mercy, is a curse, not a
blessing to mankind. The Bible addresses all such persons as "scribes, pharisees, hypocrites, who pay tithe
of mint, anise, and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgement, mercy and faith."
THE CHURCH RESPONSIBLE.
But the church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of die slave, it actually takes sides with the
oppressors. It has made itself the bulwark of American slavery, and the shield of American slave-hunters.
Many of its most eloquent Divines. who stand as the very lights of the church, have shamelessly given the
sanction of religion and the Bible to the whole slave system. 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.
For my part, I would say, welcome infidelity! welcome atheism! welcome anything! in preference to the
gospel, as preached by those Divines! They convert the very name of religion into an engine of tyranny, and
barbarous cruelty, and serve to confirm more infidels, in this age, than all the infidel writings of Thomas
Paine, Voltaire, and Bolingbroke, put together, have done! These ministers make religion a cold and
flinty-hearted thing, having neither principles of right action, nor bowels of compassion. They strip the love of
God of its beauty, and leave the throne of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form. It is a religion for
oppressors, tyrants, man-stealers, and thugs. 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. 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 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. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth. They are a
trouble to me; I am weary to bear them; and when ye spread forth your hands I will hide mine eyes from you.
Yea! when ye make many prayers, I will not hear. YOUR HANDS ARE FULL OF BLOOD; cease to do evil, learn to do well; seek judgement; relieve the oppressed; judge for the fatherless; plead for the widow."
The American church is guilty, when viewed in connection with what it is doing to uphold slavery; but it is
superlatively guilty when viewed in connection with its ability to abolish slavery. The sin of which it is guilty is
one of omission as well as of commission. Albert Barnes but uttered what the common sense of every man at
all observant of the actual state of the case will receive as truth, when he declared that "There is no power out
of the church that could sustain slavery an hour, if it were not sustained in it."
Let the religious press, the pulpit, the Sunday school, the conference meeting, the great ecclesiastical,
missionary, Bible and tract associations of the land array their immense powers against slavery and
slave-holding; and the whole system of crime and blood would be scattered to the winds; and that they do not
do this involves them in the most awful responsibility of which the mind can conceive.
In prosecuting the anti-slavery enterprise, we have been asked to spare the church, to spare the ministry; but
how, we ask, could such a thing be done? 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. From what quarter, I beg to know, has proceeded a fire so deadly upon our ranks, during the last two
years, as from the Northern pulpit? As the champions of oppressors, the chosen men of American theology have appeared — men, honored for their so-called piety, and their real learning. 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 of Him, by whom they professed to he called to the ministry, deliberately
taught us, against the example of the Hebrews and against the remonstrance of the Apostles, they teach "that
we ought to obey man's law before the law of God."
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. 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. There are exceptions, and I thank God that there are. Noble men may be found, scattered all over these
Northern States, of whom Henry Ward Beecher of Brooklyn, Samuel J. May of Syracuse, and my esteemed friend* on the platform, are shining examples; and let me say further, that upon these men lies the duty to
inspire our ranks with high religious faith and zeal, and to cheer us on in the great mission of the slave's
redemption from his chains. [*Rev. R. R. Raymond]
RELIGION IN ENGLAND AND RELIGION IN AMERICA.
One is struck with the difference between the attitude of the American church towards the anti-slavery
movement, and that occupied by the churches in England towards a similar movement in that country. 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. There, the
question of emancipation was a high[ly] religious question. It was demanded, in the name of humanity, and
according to the law of the living God. The Sharps, the Clarksons, the Wilberforces, the Buxtons, and
Burchells and the Knibbs, were alike famous for their piety, and for their philanthropy. The anti-slavery
movement there was not an anti-church movement, for the reason that the church took its full share in
prosecuting that movement: and the anti-slavery movement in this country will cease to be an anti-church
movement, when the church of this country shall assume a favorable, instead of a hostile position towards that movement. Americans! your republican politics, not less than your republican religion, are flagrantly inconsistent. You boast of your love of liberty, your superior civilization, and your pure Christianity, while the
whole political power of the nation (as embodied in the two great political parties), is solemnly pledged to
support and perpetuate the enslavement of three millions of your countrymen. You hurl your anathemas at the
crowned headed tyrants of Russia and Austria, and pride yourselves on your Democratic institutions, while
you yourselves consent to be the mere tools and bodyguards of the tyrants of Virginia and Carolina. You
invite to your shores fugitives of oppression from abroad, honor them with banquets, greet them with ovations, cheer them, toast them, salute them, protect them, and pour out your money to them like water; but
the fugitives from your own land you advertise, hunt, arrest, shoot and kill. You glory in your refinement and
your universal education; yet you maintain a system as barbarous and dreadful as ever stained the character
of a nation — a system begun in avarice, supported in pride, and perpetuated in cruelty. You shed tears over
fallen Hungary, and make the sad story of her wrongs the theme of your poets, statesmen and orators, till your
gallant sons are ready to fly to arms to vindicate her cause against her oppressors; but, in regard to the ten
thousand wrongs of the American slave, you would enforce the strictest silence, and would hail him as an
enemy of the nation who dares to make those wrongs the subject of public discourse! You are all on fire at the mention of liberty for France or for Ireland; but are as cold as an iceberg at the thought of liberty for the
enslaved of America. You discourse eloquently on the dignity of labor; yet, you sustain a system which, in its
very essence, casts a stigma upon labor. 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. You profess to believe "that, of one blood, God made all nations of men to dwell on the face of
all the earth," and hath commanded all men, everywhere to love one another; yet you notoriously hate, (and
glory in your hatred), all men whose skins are not colored like your own. 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 enlarge further on your national inconsistencies. The existence of slavery in this
country brands your republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretence, and your Christianity as a
lie. It destroys your moral power abroad; it corrupts your politicians at home. It saps the foundation of religion;
it makes your name a hissing, and a by word to a mocking earth. It is the antagonistic force in your
government, the only thing that seriously disturbs and endangers your Union. It fetters your progress; it is the enemy of improvement, the deadly foe of education; it fosters pride; it breeds insolence; it promotes vice; it
shelters crime; it is a curse to the earth that supports it; and yet, you cling to it, as if it were the sheet anchor of
all your hopes. Oh! be warned! be warned! a horrible reptile is coiled up in your nation's 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!
THE CONSTITUTION.
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 practised 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 — norhave 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.
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 tract 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 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. Without this right, 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 rights 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.
Where the text can be found: The speech was originally published as a pamphlet. It can be located in James
M. Gregory's, Frederick Douglass, the Orator (1893). More recent publications of the speech include Philip
Foner's, The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass (1950) and The Frederick Douglass Papers (1982),
edited by John W. Blassingame.
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