Frederick Douglass and Hope

On July 5, 1852, famed orator Frederick Douglass, himself a self-emancipated former slave, gave a speech titled "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" Yes, his audience was a sympathetic one, but yet he held nothing back. The full speech is quite lengthy, but it appears in excerpts in several places online. 

While his subject matter was the gross inequities of celebrating freedom while so many human beings in the United States were not free, some of his passion carries over even into today's context. In one section, he writes:

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 (as embodied in the two great political parties), is solemnly pledged to support and perpetuate the enslavement of three millions of your countrymen. You hurl your anathemas at the crowned headed tyrants of Russia and Austria, and pride yourselves on your Democratic institutions, while you yourselves consent to be the mere tools and body-guards 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. 

This disparity, this overwhelmingly hypocritical duality, still exists in many ways. The situation is not the same, clearly, but yet, the behaviors are still with us. Douglass took a lot of risks making this speech; even though he had freed himself, the Civil War had not yet begun, and millions of people remained enslaved. His speech was given in Rochester, NY, but there were eyes and ears everywhere. In short, he pledged his life to raise awareness, and this bravery is applauded. Yet to speak out about unfair treatment is almost always shadowed by danger, by the threat to one's own well-being. Douglass was not secure in the First Amendment's protections, as he was not seen as a citizen by many people and many laws. But not to speak, or to speak mildly, would not serve the purpose. 

Near the end of his speech, Douglass sums up his argument by saying this:

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 pretence, 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 bye-word to a mocking earth. It is the antagonistic force in 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; it shelters crime; it is a curse to the earth that supports it; and yet, you cling to it…

To continue in a nefarious practice such as slavery was to embrace the stain of inhumanity, to the disapprobation of the world. It was not only morally despicable, it would impede progress, and that was an additional curse, in Douglass' assessment. 

Yet he did not fully "despair of this country":

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 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.

and

No abuse, no outrage whether in taste, sport or avarice, can now hide itself from the all-pervading light…

If a man who endured the abuses and horrors he did can see his way toward hope in dark times, I should be able to as well. 

Have a good day, friends.

C