Frederick Douglass’ timeless July 5 words
This year above all, our Independence Day commemorations and introspection ought not to conclude on the Fourth of July. Indeed, in a year like this — in our national moment of reflection and rebellion — we require one more day of contemplation on our national character and our national purpose.
This year, we should not conclude our national self-assessments on July 4.
This year, let us lengthen our observations to July 5 — not to prolong our holiday merriment, but instead to extend our holiday meditations. We should do so because 168 years ago, on July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass delivered an Independence Day speech in Corinthian Hall in Rochester, N.Y. The great abolitionist vowed never to celebrate Independence Day on July 4 until the enslaved were freed.
And so, in 10,496 remarkable words, Douglass spoke about the American Constitution and the American conscience. Here are some excerpts that resonate in our time:
In this passage, Douglass speaks of his own escape from enslavement and converts it into an American passage. He often remarked upon that great journey, and he employed it as a metaphor for the American journey — a road a later American voice might describe as a road not taken, yet.
We sometimes think of America as young in the family of nations, but in 1852, it was truly young. It had begun its national life with much growing up to do, but with great promise. Here Douglass beseeches America to realize that promise, and its potential.
In this passage, Douglass reminds Americans of the virtues the nation spoke of in its birth and bids it to listen to its own voice.
Here Douglass traces what he called “the immeasurable distance between us” and suggests the immeasurable distance America must travel to extend its high moral purpose to those who have been deprived of its gifts.
This speech was delivered two years after the Compromise of 1850, nine years before the outbreak of the Civil War and 11 before the Emancipation Proclamation. The Dred Scott decision, asserting Black people were not citizens, was five years away. The tinder of the great reckoning with human bondage had been laid.
These words might be uttered this weekend by those who, in Douglass’ words, are left “crushed and bleeding” in our time. The anti-slavery newspaper Douglass published from Rochester was called The North Star. Americans of all races have a North Star from which to navigate our national passage. That North Star is the Declaration of Independence, issued 244 years and one day from July 5, 2020.