Frederick Douglass’ Most Famous Speech: What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?

“This Fourth July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn…

On the 2d of July, 1776, the old Continental Congress, to the dismay of the lovers of ease, and the worshippers of property . . . ‘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… and to-day you reap the fruits of their success. The freedom gained is yours; and you, therefore, may properly celebrate this anniversary...

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….

Behold the practical operation of this internal slave-trade, the American slave-trade, sustained by American politics and American religion . . . I see the bleeding footsteps . . . on the way to the slave-markets, where the victims are to be sold like horses, sheep, and swine . . . My soul sickens at the sight . . . But a still more inhuman, disgraceful, and scandalous state of things remains to be presented. By an act of the American Congress . . . slavery has been nationalized in its most horrible and revolting form . . .

“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.”

★ Frederick Douglass. Oration Delivered in Corinthian Hall, Rochester. 39 pages. 8vo, original printed wrappers, dampstaining and minor wear to contents; early owner's gift inscription dated 1858 on title page. Rochester, NY: Lee, Mann & Co., 1852 #27924