Frederick Douglass spent a lot of his time traveling and delivering speech to people all over. At the end of his touring days, his act did not stop. He took on a role as an abolitionist and continued to share his beliefs.
This specific speech was delivered on July 5 in 1862 and is known to have been one of the most moving speeches he had ever delivered to the people. It commemorated the signing of the Declaration of Independence and questioned its purpose. Below is an image of the Declaration of Independence, the document he solely focuses on during this speech.
Did slaves really have the independence that was supposedly given through this document? “This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.” This was a direct quote from this particular speech. To me this means that for all those who the document can and does apply to certainly have the right to rejoice in their freedom, but for the slaves, this can not be the case. Can freedom be assigned to a certain class of people or does is apply to all? He explains that to the victim, or slave, this document serves as an act of cruelty or injustice. It tells them of their freedom, but they don’t truly have it. The rejoicing that was taken place was heartless and selfish. All those who can honestly rejoice with freedom that isn’t given to EVERYONE were considered hypocrits. Douglass looked at this situation as one of disgrace.
In deliverance of this speech, Douglass states that he is not included in the anniversary of this day. The benefits of this was not extended to himself or those like him. He uses imagery when comparing that the sunlight of this document brought life and healing to others, while death to himself. He reveals his strong feelings towards this day of the year. He feels that our nation had “never looked blacker” to him than on this day as a result of the mockery he felt the slaves were receiving.
This video shares a short part of his speech. It may be short, but I feel like it was one of the most important parts in the entire address. His entire goal was to scorn the people of the wrongfulness in slavery. That for the slaves, there is no “Independence Day”. “There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven that does not know that slavery is wrong for him”. I consider this a very powerful statement, simply because it’s true. For our nation to be an "under God" nation, does this type of treatment make sense? God himself would not support something such as slavery. There is not a man of any race that would find it morally right to slave himself to another. I think he made his point very clear, and even though none of us experienced this day in age, I think we could all agree with his point. No one deserves freedom over another, and if it's not distributed equally and without standards, that it is meaningless.
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