Frederick Douglass: What The 4th of July means to the Slave

0:00 what did the slave is the 4th of July mr. president friends and fellow-citizens he who could address this audience without a quilling sensation has stronger nerves than I have I do not remember ever to have appeared as a speaker before any assembly more strikingly 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

0:46 at ease my appearance would much misrepresent me the little experience I have had in addressing public meetings in country school houses availed me nothing on the present occasion the papers and placards say that I am to deliver a fourth of July oration this certainly sounds large and out of the common way for me it is true that I have often had the privilege to speak in a beautiful hall and to address many who now honor me with their presence but neither their familiar faces nor the perfect gauge 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 and getting

1:32 from the latter to the former are by no means slight that I am here today is to me a matter of astonishment as well as of gratitude you will not therefore be surprised if and what I have to say I events 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 fourth 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

2:19 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 threescore years and ten is the allotted time for individual men but nation's number there 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

3:05 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 pretending disastrous times but his heart may well be 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 Patriots heart might be sadder and the reformers brow heavier its future might be shrouded in gloom and the hope of its profits go out in sorrow there is consolation in the thought that America is young great streams are not easily

3:53 turned from channels worn deep in the course of Ages they may sometimes rise and 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 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

4:40 shall not presume to dwell at length on the associations that cluster about this day the simple story of it is that seventy-six 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 father's esteemed the English government as the home government and England is the fatherland this home government you know although a considerable distance from your home did in the existence of its parental prerogatives imposed upon its colonial children such restraints burdens and limitations as in its mature judgment it deemed wise right and proper but your

5:26 fathers who had not adopted the fashionable idea of this day of the infallibility of government and the absolute character of attacks 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

6:13 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 discount 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 there a 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

7:00 of Liberty may be stabbed by the men who glory in the deeds of your father's but to proceed feeling themselves harshly and unjustly treated by the home government your father's 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 and difference coldness and scorn yet they persevered they were not the mental vac as the sheet anchor took a firmer hold when the ship is tossed by the storm so did the cause of your father's grow stronger as it breasted the

7:47 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 resistive under this treatment they felt themselves the victims of Grievous wrongs wholly and curable in their colonial capacity with brave men there

8:35 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

9:22 sort of change they are always strongly in favor these people were called Tories in the days of your father's and the appellation probably conveyed the same idea that is meant by a more modern though a somewhat less youth ammonius 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 vociferation 's against it the alarming and revolutionary idea moved on and the country with it on the 2nd of July 1776 the old Continental Congress to the dismay of the lovers of ease and the worshipers of property clothed that dreadful idea with all the authority of

10:07 national sanction they did so in the form of a resolution and as we seldom hit upon resolutions drawn up an hour a day whose transparency is at all equal to this it may refresh your minds and help my story if I read it quote 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 end quote citizens your father's made good that resolution they succeeded and today you reap the fruits of their success the freedom gained is yours and you therefore may properly celebrate

10:55 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

11:41 disclosed 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

12:27 war the population was weakened scattered and the country a wilderness unsubdued there were then no means of concert in 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

13:15 great men the point from which I am compelled to view them is not certainly the most favorable and yet I cannot played 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 love 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 father staked their lives their fortunes and

14:00 their sacred honor on the cause of their country in their admiration of Liberty they lost sight of all other interests they were peaceful 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 their 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 they're solid manhood stands out the

14:46 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 inch in strength into the distant future they seized upon eternal principles and set a glorious example in their defense marked them fully appreciating the hardships 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 responsibilities they were about to assume wisely measuring the terrible odds against them your fathers the fathers of this

15:33 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 cornerstone 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 exulting Li 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

16:19 in honor of this day while the quick martial of a great and multitudinous nation echoed back by all the hills valleys and mountains of a vast continent be speak the occasion one of thrilling and universal interest a 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

17:06 thunder from your legislative halls and there is 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 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 there the great deeds of your fathers to other

17:51 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 today is with the present the accepted time with God and his cause is the everliving now quote trust no future however Pleasant let the dead past bury its dead act act in the living present heart within and God overhead end quote 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

18:36 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 share in the labor of your fathers unless your children are to be blessed by your labors you have no right to wear out and waste the hard-earned fame of your father's to cover your indolence Sydney Smith tells us that men seldom eulogized 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

19:23 we have quote Abraham to our Father end quote when they had long lost Abraham's faith and spirit that people contended 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 today need I tell you that the Jews are not the only people who built the tombs of the prophets and garnished the Sepulcher 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 traitors in the bodies and souls of men shout we have Washington to our Father and quote alas that it should be so yet so

20:09 it is quote the evil that men do lives after them the good is oft interred with their bones end quote fellow citizens pardon me allow me to ask why am I called upon to speak here today 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

20:55 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 sympathy could not warm him who is so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits whoso 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 art but such is not the state of the case I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us I am

21:41 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 they 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

22:29 asking me to speak today if so there is a parallel to your conduct and let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes towering up to heaven were thrown down by the breath of the almighty burying that nation in irrevocable ruin I can today take up the plaintive lament of appealed and woe smitten people quote 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

23:17 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 end quote fellow citizens above your national tumultuous joy I hear the mournful wail of millions whose chains heavy and grievous yesterday are today rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reached them if I do forget if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day quote may my right hand forget her cunning and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth end quote to forget them to pass lightly over their wrongs and to chime in with a popular theme would be treason most

24:04 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 it's popular characteristics from the slaves point of view standing there identified with the American bondman making his wrongs mine I do not hesitate to declare with all my soul the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this fourth 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

24:49 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 in the Bible which are 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 quote I will not equivocate I will not excuse end quote I will use the severus language I can command and yet not one word shall escape me that any man whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice or who is not at heart a slaveholder shall not confess to be right and just but I fancy I hear

25:36 someone 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 there are 72 crimes in the state of

26:21 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 the white man to the like punishment what is this but the acknowledgment that the slave is a moral intellectual and responsible being the manhood of the slave is conceded it is admitted in 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

27:07 when the fish of the sea and the reptiles that crawl shall be unable to distinguish the slave from a brute then I will 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 plowing planting and reaping using all kinds of mechanical tools erecting houses constructing bridges building ships working in metals of brass iron copper silver and gold that while we are reading writing and ciphering acting as clerks merchants and secretaries having among us lawyers doctors ministers poets authors editors orders and teachers that

27:56 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 hillside living moving acting thinking planning living in families as husbands wives and children and above all confessing and worshipping the Christians 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

28:42 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 today in the presence of Americans dividing and subdividing a disc course to show that men have a natural right to freedom speaking of it relatively and positively negatively and affirmative ly to do so would be to make myself ridiculous and to offer an insult to your understanding there is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven that does not know that slavery is wrong for him what am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes to rob them of their liberty to work them without wages to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men to beat them with

29:29 sticks to Flay their flesh with the lash to load their limbs with irons to hunt them with dogs to sell them at auction to sunder their families to knock out their teeth to burn their flesh to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters must I argue that a system thus marked with blood and stained with pollution is wrong no I will not I have better employment for my time and strength than such arguments would imply what then remains to be argued is it that slavery is not divine that God did not establish it that our doctors of divinity are mistaken there is blasphemy in the thought that which is inhuman cannot be divined who can

30:15 reason on such a proposition that they can may I cannot the time for such argument is passed at a time like this scorching irony not convincing argument is needed Oh had I the ability and could I reach the nation's ear I would today 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

31:00 hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and announced what to the American slave is your 4th of July I 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 you are 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

31:45 religious parade and solemnity are to him mere bombast fraud deception in piety 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 fact by the sight of the everyday practices of this nation and you will say with me that for our volting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy America reigns without a rival

32:31 the 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 contre distinction to the foreign slave trade the internal slave trade it is probably called so to in

33:17 order to divert from it the 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 ex 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 lasts have consented that their colored brethren nominally free should leave this country

34:05 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 honourable 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

34:50 the nation with droves of human stock you will see one of these human flesh jabbers 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 here his savage yells and his blood chilling oaths as he hurries on his affrighted captives there see the old man with LOX thinned and gray cast one glance if you please upon

35:37 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 to that girl of 13 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 rattle simultaneously your ears are saluted with a scream that seems to have torn its way to the center of your soul the crack you heard was the sound of the slave lip 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

36:24 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 can you 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 seems to me the American slave trade is a

37:10 terrible reality when a child my soul was often pierced with a sense of its horrors I lived on Phil Pitt Street Fells Point Baltimore and have watched from the wharves the slave ships in the basin anchored from ashore with their cargoes of human flesh waiting for favorable winds to walk them down the Chesapeake there was at that time a grand slave mart kept at the head of Pratt Street by odd stone wad folk his agents were sent into every town in County and Maryland announcing their arrival through the papers and on flaming handbills headed cash for Negroes these men were generally well-dressed men and very captivating in their manners ever ready to drink to

37:57 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 Junkin 'us 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 anti-slavery agitation a certain caution is observed in the deep still darkness of midnight I have often been aroused by the dead heavy footsteps and the pious cries of

38:44 the chained gangs that passed our door the anguish of my boyish heart was intense and I was often consoled when speaking the 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 sympathized with me in my horror fellow-citizens this murderous traffic is today in active operation in this boasted Republic in the solitude of my spirits I see clouds of dust raised on the highways of the South I see the bleeding footsteps I hear the doleful wail of Fedder to manatee on the way to the slave markets where the victims are to be sold like horses sheep and swine

39:29 knocked off to the highest bidder there I see the tenderest eyes ruthlessly broken to gratify the lust Caprice and rapacity of the buyers and sellers of men my soul sickens at the sight quote 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 slumbers in end quote but is still more inhuman disgraceful and scandal a 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 and Dixon's line has been obliterated New

40:15 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 coextensive 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

41:03 lawmakers have commanded all good citizens to engage in this hellish Sport your president your Secretary of State your Lords nobles and ecclesiastics and force as a duty you owe to your free and glorious country and to your God that you do this accursed thing not fewer than 40 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 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

41:50 rights of God included for black men there are neither law justice humanity nor 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 consigned 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 an 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 about one side and that side is the side of the oppressor let this damning fact be

42:38 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 to hear only his accusers in glaring violation of Justice in shameless disregard of the forms of administering law in cunning arrangement to entrap the defenseless and in diabolical intent this use of slave law stands alone in the annals of tyrannical legislation I doubt if there be another nation on the globe having the brass and the basements to put such a law on a statute book if any man in this assembly

43:26 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 infringement 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 quote mint anise and

44:13 cumin and quote abridge the right to sing psalms to partake of the sacrament or to engage in any of the ceremonies of religion it would have been 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 bill hard with that politician who presumed to solicit the both of the people without inscribing dis 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 covenant errs would be thrown into the Slade a John Knox would be seen at every Church door and heard from every pulpit and Fillmore would have no more quarter than was

44:59 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 the church regards religion simply as a form of worship an empty ceremony and not a vital principle requiring active benevolence justice love and goodwill towards men it esteemed 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

45:44 forbidding these acts of mercy is a curse not a blessing to mankind the Bible addresses all such persons as quote scribes Pharisees hypocrites who pay tithes of mint anise and cumin and have omitted the weightier matters of the law judgment mercy and faith end quote the church responsible but the Church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of the 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 Divine's who stand as the very lights of the church have shamelessly given the sanction of religion and the Bible to the whole

46:32 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 bondsman to his mass sir 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 welcomed a theism welcome anything in preference to the Gospel as preached by those Divine's 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

47:19 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 quote here an undefiled religion end quote which is from above and which is quote first pure then peaceable easy to be entreated full of mercy and good fruits without partiality and without hypocrisy end quote 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

48:06 which says to the man in Chains stay there and to the oppressor a press 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 pronounced to be an abomination in the sight of God in the language of Isaiah the American church might be well addressed quote bring no more vain ablations incense is an

48:52 abomination unto me the new moons and Sabbath's the calling of assemblies I cannot away with it is iniquity even the solemn meeting your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hate us 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 you make many prayers I will not hear your hands are full of blood cease to do evil learn to do well seek judgment relieve the oppressed judge for the fatherless plead for the widow end quote 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

49:38 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 quote there is no power out of the church that could sustain slavery an hour if it were not sustained in it end quote let the religious press the pulpit the Sunday School the conference meeting the great rate 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 involve them in the most

50:24 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 asked 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

51:10 Springs of New York the Lathrop sabab burn the Coxes and Spencer's of Brooklyn the Gannett sand sharks of Boston the Dewey's of Washington and other great religious lights of the land had in utter denial of the authority of him by whom they professed to be 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 where ease of such blasphemy and how such men can be supported as the quote standing types and representatives of Jesus Christ unquote is a mystery which I leave others to penetrate in speaking of the American church however let it be

51:56 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 the Reverend Robert R Raymond 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 slaves Redemption from his chains religion in England and religion in America one is struck with the difference between the attitude of the American Church towards

52:41 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 religious question it was demanded in the name of humanity and according to the law of the Living God the Sharps the Clarkson's the Wilberforce's the Buxton's the virtuals and the knids were alike famous for their piety and for their philanthropy the anti-slavery movement there was not an anti Church movement for the reason

53:28 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 has embodied in the two great political parties it solemnly pledged to support and perpetuate the enslavement of three millions of your countrymen you hurl yeren asommus at the crowned headed tyrants of Russia and Austria and pride yourselves on your democratic

54:14 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

55:00 the sad story of her wrongs the theme of your poets statesman and orator z' till your gallant sons are ready to fly to arms to vindicate her cause again 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 three

55:48 penny 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 quote that of one blood God made all nations of men to dwell on the face of all the earth end quote 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 quote 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

56:35 end quote and yet you hold securely in a bondage which according to your own Thomas Jefferson quote is worse than ages of that which your fathers rose in rebellion to oppose end quote 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 pretense 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 byword to a mocking earth it is the antagonistic force in

57:21 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 its shelters crime it is accursed 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 butt 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

58:08 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 father stooped basely stooped quote to palter with us in a double sense and keep the word of promise to the ear but break it to the heart end quote and instead of being the honest men I have before declared them to be they were the various dim postures that ever practiced on mankind this is the inevitable conclusion and from it there is no escape but I differ from

58:55 those who charge this baseness on the framers of the constitution of the United States it is a slander upon their memory at least so I believe there is not time now to argue the constitutional question at length nor have I the ability to discuss it as it ought to be discussed the subject has been handled with masterly power by Lysander Spooner Esquire by William Goodell by Samuel E Sewell Esquire and last though not least by Garrett Smith Esquire 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

59:41 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 slaveholding instrument why neither slavery slave holding nor slave can anywhere be found

1:00:28 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

1:01:15 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 X vice-president Dallas tells us that the Constitution is an object to which no American mind can be too attentive and no American heart to 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 tells 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 briefs Lewis Cass and many others that

1:02:01 might be named who are everywhere esteemed that sound lawyers so regard the Constitution I take it therefore that it is not presumption in the private citizen to form an opinion of that instrument now take the Constitution according to its plain reading and I defied 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

1:02:47 state of the nation I do not despair of this country there are forces in operation which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery quote the arm of the Lord is not shortened end quote 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

1:03:32 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

1:04:17 longer divided but linked 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 on the other the far-off and almost fabulous specific roles in grandeur at our feet the celestial Empire the mystery of ages is being solved the Fiat of the Almighty quote let there be light and quote 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

1:05:05 and put on her yet unwoven garment quote Ethiopia shall stretch out her hand unto God end quote in the fervent aspirations of William Lloyd Garrison I say and let every heart join in saying it quote Godspeed the year of Jubilee the wide world over when from their galling chains set free the oppressed shall vilely bend the knee and wear the yoke of tyranny like brutes no more that year will come and freedoms reign to man has plundered rights again restore Godspeed the day when human blood shall cease to flow in every clime be understood the claims of human Brotherhood and each returned for evil

1:05:52 good not blow-for-blow that day will come all feuds to end and change into a faithful friend each foe Godspeed the hour the glorious hour when none on earth shall exercise a lordly power nor in a tyrants presence cower but all to manhood 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 our arrived with head and heart and hand I'll strive to break the rod and rend the jive the spoiler of his prey deprive so witness heaven and never from my

1:06:37 chosen post whatever the peril or the cost be driven end quote end of what to the slave is the fourth of July by Frederick Douglass