LAD #19 5th of July Speech

On July 5th, 1852, Frederick Douglas spoke to a crowd in Rochester, New York explaining what the fourth of July meant to a slave. At first, Douglas asked the crowd why "the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to (the blacks)?" Douglas then goes on to say that there was an "immeasurable distance" between him and the whites. This difference was the fact that white people had inherited justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence from their fore founders. Douglas, however, did not inherit any of these virtues from the War of Independence. That is why, he says, "This fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn." He later goes on to say that he represents the black slaves and will not "hesitate to declare with all (his) soul that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to (him) than on (that) Fourth of July". Douglas says the nation "is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future." He proves that the black man is the same as a white man and they very similar. At the end of his speech, he answers his own question of what is the fourth of July to the American slave by saying that it is a day of "gross injustice" and "hollow mockery" to black slaves.