Frederick Douglass - The Hypocrisy of American Slavery

Frederick Douglass (1817-1895) was the best known and most influential African American leader of the 1800s. He was born a slave in Maryland but managed to escape to the North in 1838.

He traveled to Massachusetts and settled in New Bedford, working as a laborer to support himself. In 1841, he attended a convention of the Massachusetts Antislavery Society and quickly came to the attention of its members, eventually becoming a leading figure in the New England antislavery movement.

In 1845, Douglass published his autobiography, "The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: an American Slave." With the revelation that he was an escaped slave, Douglass became fearful of possible re-enslavement and fled to Great Britain and stayed there for two years, giving lectures in support of the antislavery movement in America. With the assistance of English Quakers, Douglass raised enough money to buy his own his freedom and in 1847 he returned to America as a free man.

He settled in Rochester, New York, where he published The North Star, an abolitionist newspaper. He directed the local underground railroad which smuggled escaped slaves into Canada and also worked to end racial segregation in Rochester's public schools.

In 1852, the leading citizens of Rochester asked Douglass to give a speech as part of their Fourth of July celebrations. Douglass accepted their invitation.

In his speech, however, Douglass delivered a scathing attack on the hypocrisy of a nation celebrating freedom and independence with speeches, parades and platitudes, while, within its borders, nearly four million humans were being kept as slaves.

Fellow citizens, pardon me, and allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here today? What have I or those I represent to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? And am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits, and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?

Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions. 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? Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Who so stolid and selfish that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nation's jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? I am not that man. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the "lame man leap as an hart."

But such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you this day rejoice are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak today? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn you, that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation (Babylon) whose crimes, towering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin.

Fellow citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions, whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are today rendered more intolerable by the jubilant shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, "may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!"

To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs and to chime in with the popular theme would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world.

My subject, then, fellow citizens, is "American Slavery." I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slave's point of view. Standing here, identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this Fourth of July.

Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity, which is outraged, in the name of liberty, which is fettered, in the name of the Constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery -- the great sin and shame of America! "I will not equivocate - I will not excuse." I will use the severest language I can command, and yet not one word shall escape me that any man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a slave-holder, shall not confess to be right and just.

But I fancy I hear some of my audience say it is just in this circumstance that you and your brother Abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind. Would you argue more and denounce less, would you persuade more and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed. But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? That point is conceded already. Nobody doubts it. The slave-holders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. There are seventy-two crimes in the State of Virginia, which, if committed by a black man (no matter how ignorant he be), subject him to the punishment of death; while only two of these same crimes will subject a white man to like punishment.

What is this but the acknowledgment that the slave is a moral, intellectual, and responsible being? The manhood of the slave is conceded. It is admitted in the fact that Southern statute books are covered with enactments, forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, the teaching of the slave to read and write. When you can point to any such laws in reference to the beasts of the field, then I may consent to argue the manhood of the slave. When the dogs in your streets, when the fowls of the air, when the cattle on your hills, when the fish of the sea, and the reptiles that crawl, shall be unable to distinguish the slave from a brute, then I will argue with you that the slave is a man!

For the present it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. Is it not astonishing that, while we are plowing, planting, and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, silver, and gold; that while we are reading, writing, and ciphering, acting as clerks, merchants, and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators, and teachers; that we are engaged in all the enterprises common to other men -- digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hillside, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives, and children, and above all, confessing and worshipping the Christian God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave -- we are called upon to prove that we are men?

Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? That he is the rightful owner of his own body? You have already declared it. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Is that a question for republicans? Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation, as a matter beset with great difficulty, involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard to understand? How should I look today in the presence of Americans, dividing and subdividing a discourse, to show that men have a natural right to freedom, speaking of it relatively and positively, negatively and affirmatively? To do so would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding. There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven who does not know that slavery is wrong for him.

What! Am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood and stained with pollution is wrong? No - I will not. I have better employment for my time and strength than such arguments would imply.

What, then, remains to be argued? Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? There is blasphemy in the thought. That which is inhuman cannot be divine. Who can reason on such a proposition? They that can, may - I cannot. The time for such argument is past.

At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. Oh! had I the ability, and could I reach the nation's ear, I would today pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be denounced.

What to the American slave is your Fourth of July? I answer, a day that reveals to him more than all other days of 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 shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mock; 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 of the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of these United States at this very hour.

Go search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.

Of course today we believe blacks are “Homo Sapiens”. Years ago many did not. Like all great people White Americans from 1776 to the 1960’s were very exclusive and said exclusionary attitudes were often expressed in laws. Exclusive peoples are not nice, warm fuzzy beings. I would have to be shown that when the words were drafted for The Declaration the authors(Jefferson, who despised blacks, largely authored the Declaration.) meant to include blacks, Asians and American Indians in their meaning of equality. The Constitution would be a better index of the turn against slavery. It is tempting to impute todays democratic prejudices to the attitudes of peoples of a different time. The term for doing so is anachronism if I remember correctly.

Mr. Douglass addresses your issue eloquently.

“Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? That point is conceded already. Nobody doubts it. The slave-holders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. There are seventy-two crimes in the State of Virginia, which, if committed by a black man (no matter how ignorant he be), subject him to the punishment of death; while only two of these same crimes will subject a white man to like punishment.”

And so on. Nobody passes laws to punish cattle.

It is only under the current egalitarian prejudice that hypocrisy would be a valid accusation on this issue.

Well said. Looking back at the 19th century with a 21st century eye will give a distorted view. It isn't fair to the people of the 19th century and makes one look a fool.

In South American countries at the time, slaves had 1/3 the lifespan of slaves in the USA.

In 1852 there were only three or four South American countries that still held slaves. All but Brazil emancipated by 1855.

You are I think generally correct, though I think your dates are a bit off. The heyday of working slaves to death in the Brazilian and Caribbean fields was the 17th and 18th centuries.

In all these countries the conditions were so atrocious that slaves had to constantly be imported to keep the numbers up. Only in what is now the USA did slave numbers grow by natural increase.

In fact, AFAIK, this is unique in world history for a slave society. Which I believe tells us something positive about the conditions.

> "...for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America [1852] reigns without a rival." [Frederick Douglass]

There were plenty of barbarous places at that time (including in Africa), and members of in-groups who exploited members of out-groups -- while celebrating their own freedom or power (as had been the case throughout history).

I read Frederick Douglass's autobiography decades ago, and found some interesting things in it, but that passage and the speech in general are rhetorical excess. Freedom is not an either-or thing. It's a matter of degree. The Fourth of July represented a great step forward in its pursuit -- admittedly, for only part of the population -- and a statement of ideals that could only be approached over time.

I can understand the bitterness felt by slaves and former slaves at the thought of slaveholders celebrating freedom while so many persons were held in captivity. I agree that slavery deserved to be denounced. The ideals of the Declaration of Independence, though, were not empty words. Those ideals helped lead to the freedom of those who were still slaves. I would contend that the descendents of those American slaves are now freer and better off in general than most of the blacks in Africa (or in Haiti, where in Douglass's time they were already supposedly "free" -- from white slaveholders, anyway. Freedom isn't an either/or thing.)

> "I would have to be shown that when the words were drafted for The Declaration the authors(Jefferson, who despised blacks, largely authored the Declaration.) meant to include blacks, Asians and American Indians in their meaning of equality."

It's pretty clear that "all men are created equal" didn't refer to equality in abilities. Even within a race all of us have different abilities, and the Founders certainly knew that. I think it means created equal in rights (that is, deserving of equal rights -- history shows that rarely if ever have "all men" had them).

Jefferson definitely considered blacks to be human beings. In his first draft of the Declaration, he referred to them as "MEN" with the word written in all caps to emphasize it. Recognizing slavery as a moral evil, though, and finding a way to end it on a large scale without disastrous results are two different things. The example of Haiti had a sobering effect on Jefferson and other Southern slaveholders who wished to see an end to slavery (gradual, not abrupt -- and I see nothing hypocritical about condemning slavery while still not wanting to end up like the whites in Haiti).

Jefferson had doubts about whether blacks as a group were the mental equals of whites, and was disposed to think that they weren't -- sharing the view of nearly all whites at that time (after all, they saw little that would lead them to believe otherwise) I wouldn't say that he "despised" them, though.

"Whether further observation will or will not verify the conjecture [he leaves even the mental part open to revision], that nature has been less bountiful to them [blacks] in the endowments of the head, I believe that in those of the heart she will be found to have done them justice. That disposition to theft with which they have been branded, must be ascribed to their situation, and not to any depravity of the moral sense." [Notes on the State of Virginia]

Notes on the State of Virginia (sections 288, 289) also contains one of his most ardent denunciations of slavery: "And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties [to which all men are entitled] are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever..."

In light of his well-reasoned and eloquent oratory, would today’s Black “leaders” accuse Frederick Douglass of acting White?

Today Douglass would have to make up an "African" name for himself and deliver his speech the way Ubama's son, if he had a son, would deliver it - - in ebonics, with lots of "bitches and ho's" thrown in, along with, "Not 'God bless America' - - 'God damn America' ".

You know - - like Ubama's reverend.

I found it uplifting that a former “slave” fixed upon education...and lifted himself up to such a learned and articulate man.

I wonder who helped him. Who nurtured him.

Rhetorical excess? I dunno....Many speeches are quite full of "themselves"...so to speak.

Either you have freedom...or you don't.

Degree's?

I'd have to ask those that have been slaves.

Of course freedom is a matter of degree. Laws prevent all of us from doing things that we might choose to do otherwise. And when blacks ceased to be “slaves”, were they entirely free? Of course not. A century of Jim Crow oppression showed otherwise.

> I wonder who helped him [Douglass]. Who nurtured him.

If I recall correctly from his autobiography, among others, some of his masters. I believe the wife of his final master, from whom he escaped, was in particular sympathetic toward him and helped him in various ways.

Information that I was finding while you posted: Here's a site (unverified -- and just mined for the quotations) that says, "At the age of 12, Frederick began receiving reading lessons from the wife of his 'master'..." Also, "Douglass was soon sent away to another slave owner named Mr. Freeman. Mr. Freeman allowed Frederick to teach other slaves to read."

As I said, I believe the wife of his last master helped him too, though it's possible I'm confusing that with what happened when he was 12 (I don't think so, though).

You’re welcome. You might like his autobiography. I’m having trouble recalling the details now, but found it interesting at the time, and I sympathized with his struggle.

I also liked Booker T. Washington’s autobiography, which covers the later period after emancipation (but under Jim Crow). The story of how he got a college education is especially impressive. When he “went to college”, he simply “went” there — traveled to the college, slept under one of the buildings, got a job (sweeping somewhere, I believe), and somehow managed to get educated. What determination! Under those conditions I wouldn’t even have tried.

I read both autobiographies at about the same time (on my own and before Black Studies came along).

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