After completing my July 4 post on President Coolidge's speech on the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, I went on to read and listen to a couple of other historic speeches celebrating America's independence. One of these was Frederick Douglass' magnificent 1852 oration What To The Slave is The Fourth of July? While doing so I came across on YouTube an NPR presentation of the speech, produced in 2020 and recited by descendants of Douglass. It is highly edited to be deliberately simplistic and misleading in order to ensure NPR listeners miss the point more than Michael Bay missed the mark when he made Pearl Harbor. As a reminder, at the time, NPR still received taxpayer funding so you paid for this piece of agitprop. Since then NPR has continued its descent into madness, naming authoritarian Katherine Maher as its CEO (for more on Maher read The "Real Trouble").
I've written of Douglass several times over the years; about his relationship with President Lincoln as well as the misuse to which he's been subjected to in our current educational system (Lincoln Douglass); on his Freedman's Monument Speech in 1876; as part of a prior July 4 post (citing to his 1852 speech); after reading his first autobiography (see Readings On Slavery). Douglass was a courageous and thoughtful man who could eloquently express complex and provocative ideas. His story should be known to all Americans.
The 1852 speech had two purposes. One is a lengthy, searing, and accurate indictment of American slavery and the complicity of white American society in its horror. It is to this topic that the NPR edited version of the speech, which has 1.6 million views and 2,700 comments, is exclusively devoted to (the NPR version also contains a coda, the reflections of Douglass' descendants regarding today's America, a topic to which I will return to after discussing the speech). The second, ignored by NPR, is Douglass' case that the Constitution is a "glorious liberty document . . . entirely hostile to the existence of slavery". The reverence with which Douglass regards the Constitution (and the Declaration, as he states elsewhere in the speech) would undermine what NPR is trying to accomplish. It also decontextualizes the speech though it is important to understand why Douglass is making this argument. And it adds a false contextualization placing it as somehow linked to the death of George Floyd and the riots and protests that occurred in its aftermath.
The speech was given on July 5, 1852 at the Corinthian Hall in Rochester, NY, the city Douglass moved to in 1847, an event organized by the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society. Two years before, slavery became "nationalized" with the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act as part of the Compromise of 1850, heightening sectional disputes over slavery, as many in the free states who had not been engaged in the slavery issue now felt they had been made complicit by the passage of the Act. More importantly for purposes of the 1852 speech, Douglass had split with the mainstream of the abolition movement and its leader and his former mentor, William Lloyd Garrison, over the interpretation of the Constitution. Garrison's organization, the American Anti-Slavery Society, the leading abolitionist group, had taken the view that the Constitution was a pro-slavery document and the only solution was to dissolve the Union and for the free states to form a New Union under a new Constitution. In 1851 the Anti-Slavery Society passed a resolution denouncing any paper opposing this belief.
After escaping slavery Douglass initially agreed with Garrison but as he studied the Constitution and the Declaration came to the conclusion they were anti-slavery documents and had broken with Garrison and started his own newspaper the North Star to promote his views. It was to address this controversial dispute within the abolitionist movement that Douglass spent so much of his speech on this topic. In the Coda to the NPR version one of the young people asserts that Douglass was speaking to those who already agreed with him but, in fact, the purpose of the Constitutional argument was to persuade a divided audience. For more on contemporaneous views of the Constitution consistent with Douglass' reading see Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States 1861-1865 by James Oakes and Natural Law and the Antislavery Constitutional Tradition by Justin Buckley Dyer.
Douglass' speech can be broken into three parts.
The first section expresses hope that America, as a young nation, can find the correct course of action and to express admiration for the Founding generation.
The second to highlight contradictions and hypocrisy regarding white Americans and slavery. The excerpts in the YouTube video are only a sampling of the examples given by Douglass.
The final section expresses his belief that the Constitution is a glorious liberty document that provides the blueprint for the end of slavery.
At the end of the post you will find excerpts from the first and third sections.
As you can see all of the excerpts in the NPR video are from the second section with the exception of one passage from the conclusion of the speech; "Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented, of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country". The following sentences are not included; "There are forces in operation, which must inevitably, work the downfall of slavery. “The arm of the Lord is not shortened,” and the doom of slavery is certain." The video contains nothing from Douglass' conclusion explaining why he does not despair, because it would undercut what NPR is trying to sell you.
And that brings me to the context in which the video was made and the significance of the coda portion.
The video was posted on YouTube on July 3, 2020 and it was specifically linked to the death of George Floyd several weeks before. NPR's description reads:
In the summer of 2020, the U.S. commemorated Independence Day amid nationwide protests for racial justice and systemic reforms in the wake of George Floyd’s death. That June, we asked five young descendants of Frederick Douglass to read and respond to excerpts of his famous speech, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”. It's a powerful, historical text that reminds us of the ongoing work of liberation.
The description notes that the video consists of excerpts but the title of the video and the description if you do a Google search implies it is the full text. The description also pulls a sleight of hand. Douglass' speech is about slavery and its relation to the Constitution but NPR links it to the "ongoing work of liberation". Like the video, NPR never directly states what that work is, nor its relation to Douglass' speech and the propositions set forth there. Instead the description and the video artfully avoids any discussion of Douglass' proposition as it must because NPR's viewpoint is that the U.S. was defective from its founding. The video is edited and put together in support of the thesis of the infamous 1619 Project, while the opening and closing of Douglass' speech are a refutation of its thesis. That Douglass' argument is both a refutation of the argument of the 1619 Project as well as of the similar historical arguments of John C Calhoun and Alexander Stephens, Southern politicians who argued that slavery was a "positive good", illustrates that we have entered into a world of strange ideological alliances in 21st century America.
The video was released in the midst of not just "protests" but also in the midst of riots and violence that resulted in thirty deaths in the short term and the most property damage (much of it to minority owned businesses) of any riots in American history. The impacts were worse longer term. As it turned out that large cities governed for decades by NPR-type Progressives were hotbeds of racism, those mayors and city councils withdrew police and let loose their paramilitary wings. Prosecutors resisted filing charges or reduced charges against those causing violence and destruction and leftist groups raised bail and paid for lawyers to defend the perpetrators. One result was a massive increase in violence in minority areas. The increase in black homicide victims of violence over baseline of recent years for the period from May 2020 to the end of 2022 amounted to more than the total number of black lynching victims from 1882 to 1968 (for more on that tragic history read Strange Fruit). In what way was that liberation? How did the protests and violence contribution to any positive solutions? In what way is the current situation of Black Americans similar to that of the slaves Frederick Douglass was discussing? None of that is addressed. It is simply implied that they are the same.
And that is the saddest thing in the video - the coda. These young people seem to believe nothing has changed since Douglass' speech. But why? They've clearly absorbed in their upbringing and education the notion of oppression, one even saying "pessimism is a tool of white oppression". We have a 20 year old claiming he is "exhausted" and near the end another says "we are still slaves to the notion that it will never get better". That last remark is double-edged. In the context of the video I think he's saying it has not gotten any better since Douglass's speech but we shouldn't lose hope it will get better. I also see it as a warning to everyone in that video that they have been slaves to that notion even though objectively things are much better than 1852.
For decades we've lived in a country where opportunities for minorities are plentiful and, in fact, privileged in education, government employment and contracts, and the corporate world. The "system" which did once work to maintain white supremacy is gone and had been for many years. The "system" now works the other way. Yet the very education system which is part of those growing opportunities, teaches the opposite - that things haven't changed and further, those same educational system at the K-12 levels in cities with large minority populations is failing those populations, failing to generate the pipeline of students who can take advantage of those opportunities.
In doing research for this post, I came across a 2014 article by a history professor who has studied Frederick Douglass in which he complains that the version of What To A Slave Is the Fourth of July? being used to teach in our schools is the same as that presented by NPR. In other words, a deliberately truncated version, omitting Douglass' context and view of the Constitution. It is part of an effort to undermine the very foundations of this country and to indoctrinate the next generation that an end to the U.S. as we know it is the only solution. Knowing that Douglass held the Declaration and Constitution and those who wrote those documents in such high regard is too dangerous for students. They might draw incorrect conclusions.
The technique here is to keep everything vague, except to instill the feeling of massive racism and oppression. The discussions we need are "what are the specific problems we are trying to solve" and "how would proposed solutions specifically help to solve them". And that is always avoided, instead we are flooded with generalities and statements built upon false assumptions.
Excerpts from opening section of the speech:
The eye of the reformer is met with angry flashes, portending disastrous times; but his heart may well beat lighter at the thought that America is young, and that she is still in the impressible stage of her existence. May he not hope that high lessons of wisdom, of justice and of truth, will yet give direction to her destiny? Were the nation older, the patriot's heart might be sadder, and the reformer's brow heavier. Its future might be shrouded in gloom, and the hope of its prophets go out in sorrow. There is consolation in the
thought, that America is young.
To say now that America was right, and England wrong, is exceedingly easy. Everybody can say it; the dastard, not less than the noble brave, can flippantly discant on the tyranny of England towards the American Colonies. It is fashionable to do so; but there was a time when, to pronounce against England, and in favor of the cause of the colonies, tried men's souls. They who did so were accounted in their day, plotters of mischief, agitators and rebels, dangerous men. To side with the right, against the wrong, with
the weak against the strong, and with the oppressed against the oppressor! here lies the merit, and the one which, of all others, seems un fashionable in our day.
Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetual remembrance. I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the RINGBOLT to the chain of your nation's destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. The principles contained in that instrument are saving principles. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost.
Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. They were great men too—great enough to give fame to a great age. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. The point from which I am compelled to view them is not, certainly the most favorable; and yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration. 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.
They loved their country better than their own private interests; and, though this is not the highest form of human excellence, all will concede that it is a rare virtue, and that when it is exhibited, it ought to command respect. He who will, intelligently, lay down his life for his country, is a man whom it is not in human nature to despise. Your fathers staked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, on the cause of their country. In their admiration of liberty, they lost sight of all other interests.
They were peace men; but they preferred revolution to peaceful submission to bondage. They were quiet men; but they did not shrink from agitating against oppression. They showed forbearance; but that they knew its limits. They believed in order; but not in the order of tyranny. With them, nothing was “settled” that was not right. With them, justice, liberty and humanity were “final;” not slavery and oppression. You may well cherish the memory of such men. They were great in their day and generation. Their solid manhood stands out the more as we contrast it with these degenerate times
[Douglass begins the transition to the present day and the plight of slaves.]
How unlike the politicians of an hour!
My business, if I have any here today, is with the present. The accepted time with God and his
cause is the ever-living now.
Closing section of speech:
And instead of being the honest men I have before declared them to be, they were the veriest imposters that ever practiced on mankind. This is the inevitable conclusion, and from it there is no escape; but I differ from those who charge this baseness on the framers of the Constitution of the United States. It is a slander upon their memory, at least, so I believe.
Fellow-citizens! there is no matter in respect to which, the people of the North have allowed themselves to be so ruinously imposed upon, as that of the pro-slavery character of the Constitution. In that instrument I hold there is neither warrant, license, nor sanction of the hateful thing; but interpreted, as it ought to be interpreted, the Constitution is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT. Read its preamble, consider its purposes. Is slavery among them? Is it at the gateway? or is it in the temple? it is neither. While I do not intend to argue this question on the present occasion, let me ask, if it be not somewhat singular that, if the
Constitution were intended to be, by its framers and adopters, a slave-holding instrument, why neither slavery, slaveholding, nor slave can anywhere be found in it.
Now, take the constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the presentation of a single proslavery clause in it. On the other hand it will be found to contain principles and purposes, entirely hostile to the existence of slavery.
Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented, of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably, work the downfall of slavery. “The arm of the Lord is not shortened,” and the doom of slavery is certain.
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. The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong city. Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe. It makes its pathway over and under the sea, as well as on the earth. Wind, steam, and lightning are its chartered agents. Oceans no longer divide, but link nations together. From Boston to London is now a holiday excursion. Space is comparatively annihilated. Thoughts expressed on one side of the Atlantic, are distinctly heard on the other.
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