“What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”

We the People

National Constitution Center

News, News Commentary, History

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 2 July 2020

⏱️ 68 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 1852, the Ladies Anti-Slavery Society of Rochester, New York, invited Frederick Douglass to give a July Fourth speech. Douglass opted to speak on July 5 instead, and, addressing an audience of about 600, he delivered one of his most iconic speeches that would become known by the name “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” This episode explores Douglass’ oration on racial injustice and the broken promises of equality and liberty laid out in the Declaration of Independence. David Blight, Pulitzer Prize-winning Douglass biographer, and Lucas Morel, an expert on Douglass and African American history and politics, join host Jeffrey Rosen. They discuss the context and content of the speech, which Blight calls “the rhetorical masterpiece of abolition.” They also explore Douglass’ views of the Declaration of Independence—including that the principles expressed in the Declaration are eternal, but America does not live up to them in practice—as well as the Constitution. Finally, they reflect on what Douglass can teach us about the challenges America faces today, including the ongoing fight for racial justice and efforts to remove monuments around the country. The full text of the speech is available here https://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/what-to-the-slave-is-the-fourth-of-july/ Questions or comments about the show? Email us at podcast@constitutioncenter.org.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi We the People listeners, I'm Jackie McDermott, the show's producer.
0:05.0	This week's episode is about Frederick Douglas' speech,
0:09.0	What to the Slave is the 4th of July.
0:11.0	Before we get to the episode, here's a recording of actor Ozzy Davis reading an excerpt from the speech,
0:18.0	courtesy of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.
0:21.0	Fellow citizens, pardon me.
0:23.0	Allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here today?
0:29.0	What have I are those I represent to do with your national independence?
0:37.0	Are the great principles of political freedom and of national justice embodied in that declaration of independence extended to us.
0:47.0	And am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar and to confess the benefits and express
0:57.0	devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your
1:03.7	independence and God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be
1:11.3	truthfully returned to these questions.
1:16.5	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?
1:28.0	Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude that would not thankfully acknowledge such
1:36.2	priceless benefits. Who's so solid and selfish that would not give his voice to swell the halleluiers of a nation's
1:45.8	Jubilee when the chains of servitude had been torn from his lens.
1:51.3	I am not that man. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak,
1:59.8	and the lame man leap as in heart.
2:05.4	But such is not the state of the case.
2:09.1	I say it with a sad sense of disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious
2:16.5	anniversary. Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us.
	...

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