A nation judged by its own principles
Read the oration as an argument that turns the founders’ Declaration against a slaveholding republic while still finding in its principles a ground for hope.
An original introduction. This guide accompanies the work; it is neither the complete text nor a translation.
Situating the text
Delivered on Monday 5 July 1852 at Corinthian Hall in Rochester before the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society, the day after a holiday that fell on a Sunday that year, the speech was printed as a pamphlet, and an extract appeared in the appendix of My Bondage and My Freedom in 1855. It follows the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 and Douglass’s break with the Garrisonians in 1851. Invited to speak for the national holiday, Douglass first honours the signers of the Declaration of Independence, then turns the celebration against those who hold it: to the slave the day reveals, more than any other, the injustice and cruelty of which he is the constant victim. He refuses to prove the slave’s humanity, which the laws themselves admit, denounces the internal slave trade, the Fugitive Slave Law and complicit churches, and ends with hope.
Following the arguments
Your holiday, not mine : Douglass speaks throughout of “your” fathers and “your” independence, and declares that the Fourth is yours, not his: the slave must mourn while the nation rejoices. Scorching irony : To argue that the slave is a man would concede that the question is open; at such a time, he says, scorching irony rather than convincing argument is needed. A liberty document : Read by its text and not by the slaveholders’ interpretation, the Constitution contains no warrant for slavery and can be called a glorious liberty document.
Continuing the reading
Mark the turn from praise of the founders to the question of what the Fourth means to the slave, then read the closing pages on the Constitution and hope; use a complete text, since the extract of 1855 omits part of the argument. Delivered on Monday 5 July 1852 at Corinthian Hall in Rochester before the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society, the day after a holiday that fell on a Sunday that year, the speech was printed as a pamphlet, and an extract appeared in the appendix of My Bondage and My Freedom in 1855. It follows the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 and Douglass’s break with the Garrisonians in 1851.
The oration holds the republic to its founding promises: its shame lies in their betrayal, its hope in the principles themselves.
Your turn to think.
- How does Douglass turn the Declaration of Independence against the nation that celebrates it?
- Why does he end with hope after so much scorching irony?
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