what to the slave is the fourth of july quotes

To arrest it, to put an end to it, this nation keeps a squadron, at immense cost, on the coast of Africa. Shall cease to flow! Frederick Douglass. Thoughts expressed on one side of the Atlantic are, distinctly heard on the other. How circumspect, exact and proportionate were all their movements! There is blasphemy in the thought. 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! Flash Player needed to Preview Courses -- Download That I am here to-day is, to me, a matter of astonishment as well as of gratitude. Click Here. Here you will see men and women reared like swine for the market. when ye make many prayers, I will not hear. Own a full-size, 3D 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. 1845 -- Publishes the first of three autobiographies, Some of these have had wives and children, dependent on them for bread; but of this, no account was made. Noble men may be found, scattered all over these Northern States, of whom Henry Ward Beecher of Brooklyn, Samuel J. Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all “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. 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. 6. who stand as the very lights of the church, have shamelessly given the sanction of religion and the Bible to the whole slave system. No matter what one may think of any President today in the battle lines drawn upon partisanship and Party loyalty, do not ever make the mistake of attributing the superlative “worst ever” to that person. The Fourth of July is and always has been ironic mockery of independence because it celebrates a document that cared little about serious application of the term to everyone from whom it expected loyalty and labor. -- Civil War -- Juneteenth", To 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. 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. 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! Practicing the art of giving without expecting something in return. 1866 -- Attends convention of Equal Rights Association and clashes with women's rights leaders over their insistence that the vote not be extended to Black men unless it is given to all women at the same time. I hated every minute of training, but I said, 'Don't quit. For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. 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! They are food for the cotton-field, and the deadly sugar-mill. 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. 6. How does "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" 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. A man can be destroyed but not defeated. You may rejoice, I must mourn. He mentions the fact to show that slavery is in no danger. 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! George's County Public Schools Equity Assurance Office In an era when Confederate statues are being toppled and Confederate flags are being banned from public events and the inevitability of changing the names of military based honoring Confederate generals is being stubbornly resisted by the President of the United States and not too many others, it is worth noting that one particular aspect of the institution and protection of slavery has for so long been curiously ignored. bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin 1895 -- Dies at his home (Cedar Copyright, 1872 -- Rochester home 3. “Trust no future, however pleasant, There is not a nation on the earth guilty of How does "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" 1865 -- April 14, Lincoln is assassinated. Not for thieves and robbers, enemies of society, merely, but for men guilty of no crime. 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. The Freeman Black History Gallery 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? When a child, my soul was often pierced with a sense of its horrors. Such a declaration of agreement on my part would not be worth much to anybody. You may rejoice, I must mourn. There are exceptions, and I thank God that there are. The task before me is one which requires much previous thought and study for its proper performance. What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? 1826 -- Sent to live with Hugh Auld family in Baltimore. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. You were under the British Crown. But, while the river may not be turned aside, it may dry up, and leave nothing behind but the withered branch, and the unsightly rock, to howl in the abyss-sweeping wind, the sad tale of departed glory. From Boston to London is now a holiday excursion. The good is oft-interred with their bones.”, “What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence?”. Frederick Douglass quotes about slavery “Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.” “What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? Introduction to What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? 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. Many of those complaints about being left out—or left behind, or being forced to adapt to a new normal resulting from a nationwide awakening—by America in the twenty-first century come to sound even more hollow and selfish when their objections are juxtaposed with that of Douglass. To him, your 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. At some future period I will gladly avail myself of an opportunity to give this subject a full and fair discussion. Your fathers were wise men, and if they did not go mad, they became restive under this treatment. Respect What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? Oh! It destroys your moral power abroad; it corrupts your politicians at home. We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future. But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. It makes its pathway over and under the sea, as well as on the earth. 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. To me the American slave-trade is a terrible reality. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost.