79. Frederick Douglass on the Fourth of July (1852) Source: Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom (New York, 1855), pp. 441-45. The greatest oration on American slavery and American freedom was delivered in Rochester, New York, in 1852 by Frederick Douglass. Speaking just after the annual Independence Day celebration, Douglass posed the question, "What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?" He answered that July Fourth festivities revealed the hypocrisy of a nation that proclaimed its belief in liberty yet daily committed "practices more shocking and bloody" than any other country on earth. Like other abolitionists, however, Douglass also laid claim to the founders' legacy. The Revolution had proclaimed "the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in [the] Declaration of Independence," from which subsequent generations had tragically strayed. Only by abolishing slavery and freeing the ideals of the Declaration from the bounds of race could the United States, he believed, recapture its original mission. FELLOW-CITIZENS, PARDON me, 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 Chanter 12: An Age of Reform, 1820-1840 Questions 1. What does Douglass hope to accomplish by accusing white Americans of injustice and hypocrisy? 2. What evidence does Douglass present to disprove the idea of Black inferiority?

79. Frederick Douglass on the Fourth of July (1852) Source: Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom (New York, 1855), pp. 441-45. The greatest oration on American slavery and American freedom was delivered in Rochester, New York, in 1852 by Frederick Douglass. Speaking just after the annual Independence Day celebration, Douglass posed the question, "What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?" He answered that July Fourth festivities revealed the hypocrisy of a nation that proclaimed its belief in liberty yet daily committed "practices more shocking and bloody" than any other country on earth. Like other abolitionists, however, Douglass also laid claim to the founders' legacy. The Revolution had proclaimed "the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in [the] Declaration of Independence," from which subsequent generations had tragically strayed. Only by abolishing slavery and freeing the ideals of the Declaration from the bounds of race could the United States, he believed, recapture its original mission. FELLOW-CITIZENS, PARDON me, 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 Chanter 12: An Age of Reform, 1820-1840 Questions 1. What does Douglass hope to accomplish by accusing white Americans of injustice and hypocrisy? 2. What evidence does Douglass present to disprove the idea of Black inferiority?