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Happy 4th of July-my brother, 1SBM/Posted at his request
“What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”
Frederick Douglass
July 5, 1852
Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens:
He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has stronger nerves than I have. I do not remember ever to have appeared as a speaker before any assembly more shrinkingly, nor with greater distrust of my ability, than I do this day. A feeling has crept over me, quite unfavorable to the exercise of my limited powers of speech. The task before me is one which requires much previous thought and study for its proper performance. I know that apologies of this sort are generally considered flat and unmeaning. I trust, however, that mine will not be so considered. Should I seem at ease, my appearance would much misrepresent me. The little experience I have had in addressing public meetings, in country schoolhouses, avails me nothing on the present occasion.
The papers and placards say, that I am to deliver a 4th [of] July oration. 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. But neither their familiar faces, nor the perfect gage I think I have of Corinthian Hall, seems to free me from embarrassment.
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/what-to-the-slave-is-the-fourth-of-july/
Frederick Douglass
July 5, 1852
Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens:
He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has stronger nerves than I have. I do not remember ever to have appeared as a speaker before any assembly more shrinkingly, nor with greater distrust of my ability, than I do this day. A feeling has crept over me, quite unfavorable to the exercise of my limited powers of speech. The task before me is one which requires much previous thought and study for its proper performance. I know that apologies of this sort are generally considered flat and unmeaning. I trust, however, that mine will not be so considered. Should I seem at ease, my appearance would much misrepresent me. The little experience I have had in addressing public meetings, in country schoolhouses, avails me nothing on the present occasion.
The papers and placards say, that I am to deliver a 4th [of] July oration. 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. But neither their familiar faces, nor the perfect gage I think I have of Corinthian Hall, seems to free me from embarrassment.
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/what-to-the-slave-is-the-fourth-of-july/
19 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
to K&R this post, DSB and 1SBM!! 
1SBM 
Happy 4th of July!!!
And one of his most famous. 
Even today, there are citizens who don't understand the mixed feelings that a whole segment of this nation's population has regarding this country's liberation and creation of a new government, because that liberation only applied to certain people and not the rest. Basically, my ancestors were chattel and none of the rules applied, even if freed or born free. Several years after Douglass gave that speech, the Supreme Court rendered that infamous decision in the Dred Scott case -
New-York Daily Times
<...>
Washington, Friday, March 6 (1857) - The opinion of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott Case was delivered by Chief Justice Taney. It was a full and elaborate statement of the views of the Court. They have decided the following important points:
First - Negroes, whether slaves or free, that is, men of the African race, are not citizens of the United States by the Constitution.
Second - The Ordinance of 1787 had no independent constitutional force or legal effect subsequently to the adoption of the Constitution, and could not operate of itself to confer freedom or citizenship within the Northwest Territory on negroes not citizens by the Constitution.
Third - The provisions of the Act of 1820, commonly called the Missouri Compromise, in so far as it undertook to exclude negro slavery from, and communicate freedom and citizenship to, negroes in the northern part of the Louisiana cession, was a Legislative act exceeding the powers of Congress, and void, and of no legal effect to that end.
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0306.html#article
<...>
Washington, Friday, March 6 (1857) - The opinion of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott Case was delivered by Chief Justice Taney. It was a full and elaborate statement of the views of the Court. They have decided the following important points:
First - Negroes, whether slaves or free, that is, men of the African race, are not citizens of the United States by the Constitution.
Second - The Ordinance of 1787 had no independent constitutional force or legal effect subsequently to the adoption of the Constitution, and could not operate of itself to confer freedom or citizenship within the Northwest Territory on negroes not citizens by the Constitution.
Third - The provisions of the Act of 1820, commonly called the Missouri Compromise, in so far as it undertook to exclude negro slavery from, and communicate freedom and citizenship to, negroes in the northern part of the Louisiana cession, was a Legislative act exceeding the powers of Congress, and void, and of no legal effect to that end.
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0306.html#article
