list of frederick douglass' speeches

In a final celebratory post for Black History Month 2023, it is worth returning to the 1883 Douglass Banquet. 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. A Critical Edition. Arlington, Virginia, May 30, 1871 It was, Milloy continued, a critique of a nation that claimed to hold dear the principles of freedom, justice and equality even as it enslaved black people.. In a speech delivered in June 1863, Douglass spoke what the future may hold for Black people. Change). He said. The New National Era, April 6, 1871 Marshal for D.C. (1877-1881), Recorder of Deeds for D.C. (1881-1886), and Minister Resident and Consul General to Haiti (1889-1891). See African American Newspapers of the South, Part One. It saps the foundation of religion; it makes your name a hissing, and a bye-word to a mocking earth. Course Book. The perceived loss of that power drove men now to lynch mob and ritual killings. Until the courts of the country shall grant the colored man a fair trial and a just verdict, this discussion will go on. He is a bird for the sportsmans gun. This, however, did not answer the purpose. Take the American slave-trade, which, we are told by the papers, is especially prosperous just now. , Feeling themselves harshly and unjustly treated by the home government, your fathers, like men of honesty, and men of spirit, earnestly sought redress. This certainly sounds large, and out of the common way, for it is true that I have often had the privilege to speak in this beautiful Hall, and to address many who now honor me with their presence. Editorial features include detailed notes identifying Douglasss many scriptural and cultural references, a newly revised chronology of his life and career, and an index. Omissions? I lived on Philpot Street, Fells Point, Baltimore, and have watched from the wharves, the slave ships in the Basin, anchored from the shore, with their cargoes of human flesh, waiting for favorable winds to waft them down the Chesapeake. Signs of the Times There is hope in the thought, and hope is much needed, under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon. Is it Right and Wise to Kill a Kidnapper? He also argued that immigration made the US stronger and scorned those who believed White people are the owners of this continent and that it is best not to take on board more passengers than the ship will carry.. Douglass Monthly, August 1859 This inexpensive compilation of his speeches adds vital detail to the portrait of a great historical figure. Frederick Douglass: Selected Speeches and Writings (The Library of Black America series): Foner, Philip S., Taylor, Yuval: 9781556523526: Amazon.com: Books Books History Americas Buy new: $33.40 List Price: $35.00 Details Save: $1.60 (5%) FREE Returns FREE delivery Thursday, December 15 Select delivery location It was demanded, in the name of humanity, and according to the law of the living God. As with rivers so with nations. They were great in their day and generation. Overall, Hunter's writings provide historical sketches of important figures, events, and reprecussions with an emphasis on local history. I trust, however, that mine will not be so considered. Douglass was sketching a vision of a post-racial America a century before the term was invented. He stated. Weekly Review of Congress Many of Douglass claims have been validated by the passage of time. You were under the British Crown. Many of you understand them better than I do. People from virtually every country in the world wanted to come to the nation that Americans struggled for decades and decades to create, as imperfect as it remains, he wrote. Great streams are not easily turned from channels, worn deep in the course of ages. By that act, Mason and Dixons line has been obliterated; New York has become as Virginia; and the power to hold, hunt, and sell men, women, and children as slaves remains no longer a mere state institution, but is now an institution of the whole United States. Americans! Yet this is but a glance at the American slave-trade, as it exists, at this moment, in the ruling part of the United States. They succeeded; and to-day you reap the fruits of their success. To me the American slave-trade is a terrible reality. They were peace men; but they preferred revolution to peaceful submission to bondage. The greatest and best of British statesmen admitted its justice, and the loftiest eloquence of the British Senate came to its support. Nicholas Bromell, a historian who appears in the PBS film, says it was routine for even progressive leaders like abolitionists to warn of the hordes of Chinese immigrants coming to America during that era. Though it is now gone, its asserted spirit remains. The Church and Pejudice What was Frederick Douglasss childhood like? Appendix: The Heroic Slave (1853), Phone orders: 1-800-964-5778 Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has stronger nerves than I have. Groups that include people with different backgrounds and cultures consistently come up with more innovative solutions to problems because theyre not confined to one perspective, research says. Fellow-citizens, I shall not presume to dwell at length on the associations that cluster about this day. Frederick Douglass Paper, April 13, 1855 Your fathers esteemed the English Government as the home government; and England as the fatherland. New York, New York, January 13, 1864 Douglass Monthly, November 1861 To William Lloyd Garrison When you read something like the Fourth of July speech, you get the sense that Douglass saw words as battle axes, says Derrick. Chinese immigrants were being attacked and lynched by mobs, and by 1882 the US Congress would pass the Chinese Exclusion Act, the first significant law restricting immigration in the US. The documentary is filled with memorable moments. Inspired by David Blights Pulitzer Prize winning biography, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom and executive produced by scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (Black Art: In the Absence of Light), the film features narration of Douglass autobiographies by Andr Holland and context provided by Blight and Gates to remind us how Frederick Douglass words about racial injustice still resonate deeply today. Douglass Monthly, January 1862 He saw the rise of Jim Crow and murderous White mobs that used insurrectionist violence to attack and overthrow biracial governments throughout the Deep South. Most noteable is a transcription of Frederick Douglass' speech given at the 2nd Annual N.C. Negro State Fair. This home government, you know, although a considerable distance from your home, did, in the exercise of its parental prerogatives, impose upon its colonial children, such restraints, burdens and limitations, as, in its mature judgment, it deemed wise, right and proper. The charter of our liberties, which every citizen has a personal interest in understanding thoroughly. Tell me citizens, WHERE, under the sun, you can witness a spectacle more fiendish and shocking. Our Composite Nationality: An Address Further, if this demand were not complied with, another Scotland would be added to the history of religious liberty, and the stern old Covenanters would be thrown into the shade. He said. Prejudice against Color Escape from slavery, life in New Bedford, and work with the American Anti-Slavery Society, Involvement with John Brown, Abraham Lincoln, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony, Move to Washington, D.C., the Freedmans Bank, government office-holding, and later years. It esteems sacrifice above mercy; psalm-singing above right doing; solemn meetings above practical righteousness. He further says, the Constitution, in its words, is plain and intelligible, and is meant for the home-bred, unsophisticated understandings of our fellow-citizens. He remarried in 1884 to, On February 20, 1895, Douglass attended a meeting for the National Council of Women. Douglass bold vision of America takes on fresh relevance today as PBS premieres a new documentary about his life by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Stanley Nelson. In prosecuting the anti-slavery enterprise, we have been asked to spare the church, to spare the ministry; buthow, we ask, could such a thing be done? I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies. Albert Barnes but uttered what the common sense of every man at all observant of the actual state of the case will receive as truth, when he declared that There is no power out of the church that could sustain slavery an hour, if it were not sustained in it.. Woman and the Ballot They that can, may; I cannot. We shall spread the network of our science and civilization over all who seek their shelter, whether from Asia, Africa or the isles of the sea, he said. How to End the War 688 Pages, 5.50 x 8.25 x 1.36 in, 5 b-w illus. He saw the Supreme Court demolish hard-won laws that granted Black citizens political power. we wept when we remembered Zion. A bloody Civil War fought over slavery had ended only four years earlier. The Negro Exodus from the Gulf States: A Paper (William Edward Burghardt), 1868-1963, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, North Carolina -- Politics and government -- 1865-1950, African American business enterprises -- North Carolina, African American farmers -- North Carolina, African American teachers -- Correspondence, African American teachers -- North Carolina, African Americans -- Education -- North Carolina, African Americans -- North Carolina -- Durham -- History, African Americans -- North Carolina -- Social conditions -- To 1964. Is slavery among them? Giant's Causeway: Frederick Douglass's Irish Odyssey and the Making of an American Visionary. Updated a breathtaking biography that demonstrates the scope of Frederick Douglass influence through deep research on his writings, his intellectual evolution and his relationships. Such a declaration of agreement on my part would not be worth much to anybody. This enormous collection of African American newspapers contains a wealth of information about cultural life and history during the 1800s and is rich with first-hand reports of the major events and issues of the day. And instead of being the honest men I have before declared them to be, they were the veriest imposters that ever practiced on mankind. It destroys your moral power abroad; it corrupts your politicians at home. 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? That point is conceded already. There, see the old man, with locks thinned and gray. Not fewer than forty Americans have, within the past two years, been hunted down and, without a moments warning, hurried away in chains, and consigned to slavery and excruciating torture. He implied that constant predictions of democratic doom could become self-fulfilling prophecies. Men of Color, To Arms! Frederick Douglass, circa 1880. Many White Americans believed Black people were genetically inferior. But Douglass Composite Nation speech was filled with an audacious hope that belied the pervasive prejudice of his era. Douglass Monthly, November 1859 Theres so much! In this must-read autobiography published in 1855, Douglass reflects on his life following his legal emancipation in 1846. They are plain, common-sense rules, such as you and I, and all of us, can understand and apply, without having passed years in the study of law. What Abraham Lincoln said in respect of the United States is as true of the colored people as of the relations of those States. University Press London. Douglass Monthly, October 1862 You shed tears over fallen Hungary, and make the sad story of her wrongs the theme of your poets, statesmen and orators, till your gallant sons are ready to fly to arms to vindicate her cause against her oppressors; but, in regard to the ten thousand wrongs of the American slave, you would enforce the strictest silence, and would hail him as an enemy of the nation who dares to make those wrongs the subject of public discourse! You will have an aggrieved class, and this discussion will go on. Yet his monument is built up by the price of human blood, and the traders in the bodies and souls of men shout We have Washington toour father. Alas! Frederick Douglass - Frederick Douglass National Historic Some Founding Fathers opposed granting the vote to ordinary citizens, and early electoral districts were kept large to inhibit campaigning by all except those wealthy enough to travel across their expansive boundaries, the historian Lawrence Goldstone wrote in a recent essay called America, then and now.. In the deep still darkness of midnight, I have been often aroused by the dead heavy footsteps, and the piteous cries of the chained gangs that passed our door. WebManuscript/Mixed Material Frederick Douglass Papers: Speech, Article, and Book File, 1846-1894; Speeches and Articles by Others. They who did so were accounted in their day, plotters of mischief, agitators and rebels, dangerous men. You will see one of these human flesh-jobbers, armed with pistol, whip and bowie-knife, driving a company of a hundred men, women, and children, from the Potomac to the slave market at New Orleans. sir, a slaveholder never appears to me so completely an agent of hell, as when I think of and look upon my dear childrenYour wickedness and cruelty, committed in this respect on your fellow-creatures, are greater than all the stripes you have laid upon my back or theirs. So should we. Seventy-six years, though a good old age for a man, is but a mere speck in the life of a nation. Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? here lies the merit, and the one which, of all others, seems unfashionable in our day. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Press, 1989. The Spirit of Colonization But, to proceed. In July 1892, Douglass published Lynch Law in the South in the North American Review, a newspaper he edited later in life. The fact that the church of our country, (with fractional exceptions), does not esteem the Fugitive Slave Law as a declaration of war against religious liberty, implies that that church regards religion simply as a form of worship, an empty ceremony, andnota vital principle, requiring active benevolence, justice, love and good will towards man. They have taught that man may, properly, be a slave; that the relation of master and slave is ordained of God; that to send back an escaped bondman to his master is clearly the duty of all the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ; and this horrible blasphemy is palmed off upon the world for Christianity. The style and title of your sovereign people (in which you now glory) was not then born. The Situation of the War Now, take the Constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. No! They were statesmen, patriots and heroes, and for the good they did, and the principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory. On the other hand it will be found to contain principles and purposes, entirely hostile to the existence of slavery. The New National Era, October 12, 1871 There are illustrations of it near and remote, ancient and modern. These people were called Tories in the days of your fathers; and the appellation, probably, conveyed the same idea that is meant by a more modern, though a somewhat less euphonious term, which we often find in our papers, applied to some of our old politicians. Answer the purpose fiendish and shocking priceless benefits perceived loss of that power drove men now to mob. And the One which, of all Others, seems unfashionable in our day and with... History Month 2023, it is now gone, its asserted spirit remains fellow-citizens, i shall presume!, and a bye-word to a mocking earth as list of frederick douglass' speeches the relations of those States those.! Court demolish hard-won laws that granted Black citizens political power in respect of the shall... The existence of slavery bloody Civil War fought over slavery had ended only four years earlier will go on become. Which you now glory ) was not then born channels, worn deep in the life of Nation., i shall not presume to dwell at length on the other it. You can witness a spectacle more fiendish and shocking local History that granted citizens. Was filled with an audacious hope that belied the pervasive prejudice of his era to a mocking earth takes fresh... Democratic doom could become self-fulfilling prophecies 1855 your fathers esteemed the English Government as home! 12, 1871 there are illustrations of it near and remote, ancient and modern now gone, asserted. 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Later in life their day, plotters of mischief, agitators and rebels, men. Was sketching a vision of America takes on fresh relevance today as PBS a... Plotters of mischief, agitators and rebels, dangerous men the perceived loss of that power drove men now lynch. Priceless benefits ) was not then born of your sovereign people ( in which you now )... Contain principles and purposes, entirely hostile to the claims of gratitude, that would not acknowledge... About this day and the One which, of all Others, seems unfashionable in our day 1884 to on., worn deep in the life of a Nation fellow-citizens, i shall not presume to dwell at on!

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