LAD #16: Frederick Douglas's 5th of July Speech

Frederick Douglas, 1852

Summary: Douglas begins with several rhetorical questions, all aimed at illustrating the difference between white and black Americans (both free and enslaved) in 1850's America. He then makes several statements, all meant as answers to the questions he first posed. Douglas says that while many Americans rejoice at the celebration of their freedoms on the national Holiday, millions of hardworking and equal [in body and mind, though definitely not legal status] black Americans can never celebrate those freedoms, because they lack them altogether. Obviously this is because many millions are enslaved, but Douglas also points out that free blacks are in no way legally or socially equal to their fellow Americans. He closes the long address by explaining how the US is unrivaled in its hypocrisy and tyranny. A nation that claims to value freedom and equality over all else, and broke free through force to end the rule of an aloof tyrant, enslaves millions of people and treats them as cheap property to be bought, sold, and abused.

(To me this whole speech connected heavily to the horrible irony that black soldiers in the Continental Army faced - they were told they were fighting to change things and to gain freedom from tyranny, but they simply came under the boot of  Americans, instead of British Colonists.)