1
,
What to the SlaveIs the Fourth of July? .
terpreted, the Constitution is a GLORI 0 US'LI BERTY .
DOCUMENT... '
z
..
Frederick Douglass was invited by the Rochester (New
York) Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society to give an oration in
Corinthian Hall on the Fourth of July, 1852. He agreed,
but not on that date; on the day after Independence Day,
staunchly 'antislavery Rochester crowded into the hall to
hear what came to be known as Frederick Douglass's
Fifth of July speech- "What to the Slave Is the Fourth
of July?" ,
Douglass delivered this speech almost 10 years before
,the outbreak of the Civil War. His prophesy of the war
was as accurate as his vision of America 140 years later
was clear. Following are excerpts from the speech.
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 ... From the
round top of your ship of state, dark and threaten ing
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 ... ', ,
T' his Fourth (of) July, is yours, not mine. You may "There is consolation in the thought that America is
rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters young. Great streams are not easily turned from chan­
into, the grand illuminated temple of liberty, .and call nels, worn deep in the course of ages. They may some­
upon' him to join you in joyous anthems, were In-' times rise in quiet and stately.majesty, and inundate the
human mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, . land, refreshing and fertilizing the earth with their .
cltlzens, to' mock me, by asking me to speak today? " I mysterious properties. They may also rise in wrath and
"Would you have me argue that man is entitled to his fury, and bear away, on their angry waves, the accumu-
liberty? that he is the rightful owner of his own body? lated wealth of years of toil and hardship. They, how-
You have already declared it. Must I argue the wrong- ever, gradually flow back to t�e same old channel, and
fulness of slavery? Is that a question for Republicans? . flow on as serenely as ever.' But, while the river may not
• • Fellow-citizens! there is no matter in respect to' be turned aside, it may dry up, and leave nothlng be-
which, the people of the North-have allowed themselves . hind but th withered branch, and the unsightly rock,
to be so ruinously imposed upon, as that of the pro- to howl in abyss-sweeping wind, the sad tale of
slavery character of the Constitution. In that Instru- departed glory.
ment I hold there is no warrant, license, nor sanction of "As with rivers so with nations. n-
the hateful thing; but, interpreted as it, ought to be in-
"