A Reading for Independence Day: “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”
July 4th, otherwise known as Independence Day in America, celebrates the day that our founders signed that noble document, The Declaration of Independence. This document is rightly hailed in history as the place where the philosophical foundations for American democracy begin. The tenets in this key piece of parchment underscores the starting principles which will ultimately lead to the Constitution and its Bill of Rights.
In America, the celebration of July 4th is usually accompanied by family barbeques, lawn games such as cornhole, croquet, or more recently, Spikeball. Larger families may spend the day by the lake or play a pickup game of football or basketball. After the burgers and potato salad have been finished, the night ends with a resounding display of fireworks. Almost every single town across America has a fireworks display on the fourth of July, no matter how modest their city budgets. Seeing the fireworks shoot across the towns is a spectacle I enjoy. From my house, you can typically see the displays of at least three different towns.
Yet before all of this celebration, I am left with the desire to contemplate the ideals which inspire the holiday—freedom, liberty, and justice. On a day like July 4th, the most logical place to turn for readings on these topics might be the Federalist Papers, written by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison. Or, perhaps, the very document we are celebrating, the Declaration of Independence. Despite these great choices, I find the most honest discussion of freedom, liberty, and justice, especially on a holiday such as July 4th, to be Frederick Douglass’s “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”
Cover art for audiobook of “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”
Every year around this time of year I listen to an audiobook version of this speech[1]. This speech, given in front of the Rochester Ladies’ Antislavery Association on July 4, 1852, explores both the greatness of the founding of America, and how in her short 76 years she had already accomplished great things. Douglass, himself a former slave and fierce leader of the abolitionist movement, starts this speech admiring the founders for what they did, and outlines why it is appropriate that the audience should be celebrating this date. His praise of the founders is unbridled, acknowledging their differences and flaws and recognizing that their overriding pursuit of liberty above other concerns is one of the most admirable pursuits imaginable.
If the speech were to end there, this would be an anodyne, saccharine speech without any meaningful message other than praise for the founders (a practice we make too commonplace in our current politics). Douglass is not there to give a flowery speech about the founders, though. He is there to discuss the present and the future, a task which all must focus on in their daily living. It is good to remember the accomplishments of the past, but there is still work to be done. We cannot rest of the work of our parents alone—we can only take reprieve in their work insofar as we also work to provide comfort with our work to our own children. Douglass draws our attention to the fact that in 1852, slavery is indoctrinated into the very fabric and being of the United States. It is not contained to the southern states alone, as many northerners at the time wish to believe. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, Douglass points out, eliminates the distinction of the Mason-Dixon line and makes it legal to bring escaped and freed slaves back into shackles under the treatment of their masters. This cements a pro-slavery policy between the north and the south, causing excruciating harm to those who are captured as a part of the act. Meanwhile, the attitude of the day is that shipping people from West Africa to America is barbarous and cruel—yet within the country, the “internal slave trade” (as Douglass calls it), where those born on domestic soil are traded and treated as stock, does not disturb the conscience of Americans the same way. The very existence of this practice means that while you (the white men and women of this country who are free and not at risk of becoming slaves) can and should celebrate July 4th. Those men and women who have been and continue to be victims of slavery cannot.
“What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in 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 denunciations of tryants, brass fronted impudence; your shourts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; 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 on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.”
Douglass, in outlining his agenda for this speech, is not interested in providing kind, semantic, logical arguments in favor of the humanity of slaves and against slavery in an effort to win over those who are pro-slavery. He directly addresses those opponents who would say that, if only he were nicer, if only “would you argue more, and denounce less, would you persuade more, and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed.” Here we see signs of what today we refer to as tone-policing, where one does not engage with the content of one’s message, but instead side-steps it in favor of an attack on the delivery and tone of the message. Douglass shuts those critics up quickly with no-nonsense arguments about the humanity of slaves and how people have rights to their personal liberty, as outlined and asserted by the very inception of America itself. Everyone who is of clear logic knows that slavery is evil and wrong—it is only those who benefit from its practice, either directly who indirectly, who are unable to admit as much. He will not spend precious time engaging with bad faith arguments or holding rhetorical punches for the sake of niceties.
Douglass indicts not only the governments laws but also the churches and religioius institutions that help prop up slavery. Either through malice or indifference, churches across the nation provide safe harbor for the ideas of slavery and do not take up the moral stance required to help abolish slavery. Instead, this American religion is one “which favors the rich against the poor; which exalts the proud above the humble; which divides mankind into two classes, tyrants and slaves; which says to the man in chains, stay there; and to the oppressor, oppress on…” For Douglass, the churches are guilty not only because of their appeasement of slavery, but because they have the power to help abolish slavery. If churches and religion across the nation were to pursue God’s law over man’s law, as Douglass argues they should, then how could this do anything but help lead to the end of slavery?
America, as long as it has slavery, will only bring harm to the country. It shows the hypocrisy of America’s morals, of our religion, and of our politics. There is nothing in the Constitution that enshrines the necessity of slavery to the American vision of the Constitution. As Douglass writes, “Read its preamble, consider its purposes. Is slavery among them? Is it at the gateway? Or is it in the temple? It is neither.” For all of the verbal lashings that Douglass gives to the church, the government, and the country, he still holds that America can be a truly free nation. There is a spirit in the air, both within America and abroad, that will inevitably “work the downfall of slavery.” Douglass leaves his audience with optimism that slavery can and will vanish off the face of the earth.
In the present, this speech inspires me. Just as Douglass saw and experienced the evils of slavery in his time, we know in our time there are still many ills being endured by the people of today which were caused by the evils of yesterday. America has not always been a unified nation, and so we must fight for that which are most important. To carry the strength of our convictions and pursue wholeheartedly a goal such as abolition, the way Frederick Douglass did, is a manner in which the nation should always strive. To know what is evil and say so, without concession or debate, to show harm exactly for what it is and oppose it meaningfully with our words and deeds—that is the message of July 4th.
That is the meaning of independence.
[1] The best reading of this speech I know is narrated by Amir Abdullah and can be found on Libro.fm, as well as most other audiobook providers. His pacing and tone strike as close to a genuine re-enactment of the original speech as I could imagine. His reading puts me in Rochester Hall, in 1852, alongside abolitionists, listening to a passionate and brilliant speaker.
