frederick douglass civil war speech

Secondly: The vast expense of the war and the heavy taxes in money as well as men which the war requires for its prosecution. The lesson for the statesmen at his hour is to discover and apply some principle of government which shall produce unity of sentiment, unity of idea, unity of object. You and I know that the mission of this war is national regeneration. Strike out the high ends and aims thus indicated, and the war would appear to the impartial eye of an onlooking world like little better than a gigantic enterprise for shedding human blood. Composite Nation Lecture delivered as part of the Parker Fraternity Series by Frederick Douglass (1867) in Boston. But, fellow-citizens, I have far less solicitude about the position and the influence of this party than I have about that of the great loyal party of the country. Fourthly: And superior to all others, is the national prejudice and hatred toward all colored people of the country, a feeling which has done more to encourage the hopes of the rebels than all other powers beside. He was a man of great ambition, courage, and intellect. We want a country where men may assemble from any part of it, without prejudice to their interests or peril to their persons. Then there is the danger arising from the impatience of the people on account of the prolongation of the war. The North Star, later called Frederick Douglass’ Paper, was an antislavery newspaper published by Frederick Douglass. Let them bend as they will bend, there will come the test of our sternest virtues. I know we are not to be praised for this changed character of the war. Thirdly: That we regard the whole colored population of the country, in the loyal as well as in the disloyal states, as our countrymen—valuable in peace as laborers, valuable in war as soldiers—entitled to all the rights, protection, and opportunities for achieving distinction enjoyed by any other class of our countrymen. This may be so, but I do not share the confidence with which it is asserted. 1878: In 1878, Frederick Douglass purchases a 15-acre estate, called Cedar Hill, in Anacostia, D.C. Ask why it now asserts freedom of speech, when sympathizers with traitors claim that freedom, and again slavery is the answer. Then the uplifted arm of the nation will swing unfettered to its work, and the spirit and power of the rebellion will be broken. I personally believe that Frederick Douglass had the biggest impact on the Civil war, along with the abolitionist movement. I know the American people. Identify these elements. The blow we strike is not merely to free a country or continent, but the whole world, from slavery; for when slavery fails here, it will fall everywhere. Speaking in the name of Providence, some men tell me that slavery is already dead, that it expired with the first shot at Sumter. We had come to be ashamed of slave hunting, and being made the watchdogs of slaveholders, who were too proud to scent out and hunt down their slaves for themselves. We are not fighting for the old Union, nor for anything like it, but for that which is ten thousand times more important; and that thing, crisply rendered, is national unity. It was a vast and glorious step in the right direction. Ask why it was opposed to giving persons claimed as fugitive slaves a jury trial before returning them to slavery; ask why it is now in favor of giving jury trial to traitors before sending them to the forts for safekeeping; ask why it was for war at the beginning of the Rebellion; ask why it has attempted to embarrass and hinder the loyal government at every step of its progress, and you have but one answer, slavery. WE want a country, and are fighting for a country, where social intercourse and commercial relations shall neither be embarrassed nor embittered by the imperious exactions of an insolent slaveholding oligarchy which required Northern merchants to sell their souls as a condition precedent to selling their goods. Let us have the Constitution, with it thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments, fairly interpreted, faithfully executed, and cheerfully obeyed in the fullness of their spirit and the completeness of their letter…. It overturned the French throne, sent Louis Philippe into exile, shook every throne in Europe, and inaugurated a glorious Republic. Fourthly: Believing that the white race has nothing to fear from fair competition with the black race, and that the freedom and elevation of one race are not to be purchased or in any manner rightfully subserved by the disfranchisement of another, we shall favor immediate and unconditional emancipation in all the states, invest the black man everywhere with the right to vote and to be voted for, and remove all discriminations against his rights on account of his color, whether as a citizen or as a soldier. It began narrow and has become broad. I was not sent and am not come to console this breach of our political church. It is a short speech, but one of the best of its type I’ve ever encountered. I’ve posted it before, but it think it’s something worth re-reading and contemplating every Memorial Day. The saying that revolutions never go backward must be taken with limitations. I know that many are appalled and disappointed by the apparently interminable character this war. The game is now in our hands. Loyalty has a strong back, but taxation has often broken it. If Ireland should strike for independence tomorrow, the sympathy of this country would be with her, and I doubt if American statesmen would be more discreet in the expression of their opinions of the merits of the contest than British statesmen have been concerning the merits of ours. Fugitive-slave laws, slavery-extension laws, and Dred Scott decisions were among the steps to get the nation squarely upon the cornerstone now chosen by the Confederate states. Events are mightier than our rulers, and these divine forces, with overpowering logic, have fixed upon this war, against the wishes of our government, the comprehensive character and mission I have ascribed to it. We had come to abhor the idea of being called upon to suppress slave insurrections. Twenty years ago we hoped that Texas could not be annexed; but if that could not be prevented we hoped that she would come in a free state. We can put an end to this disloyal party by putting an end to Slavery. The charge in a comprehensive sense is most true, and it is a pity that it is true, but it would be a vast pity if it were not true. Recognized as one of the first great African-American speakers in the United States, Douglass was an advisor to President Lincoln during the Civil War… If the observance of this memorial days has any apology, office, or significance, it is derived from the moral character of this war, from the far-reaching, unchangeable and eternal principles in dispute, and for which our sons and brothers encountered hardship, danger, and death…. That party has five very strong points in its favor, and its public men and journals know well how to take advantage of them. First published on December 3, 1847, using funds Douglass earned during a speaking tour in Great Britain and Ireland, The North Star soon developed into one of the most influential African American antislavery publications of the pre-Civil War era. Ask why it was for the Florida War, and it answers, slavery. Ask why it now asserts the sovereignty of the states separately as against the states united, and again slavery is the answer. You, at least, were faithful and did your whole duty. The fact is, we are not fighting for any such thing, and we ought to come out under our own true colors, and let the South and the whole world know that we don’t want and will not have anything analogous to the old Union. Slavery being right , all that is inconsistent with its entire security is necessarily wrong, and of course ought to be put down. I now hold that a sacred regard for truth, as well as sound policy, makes it our duty to own and avow before heaven and earth that this war is, and of right ought to be, and Abolition War. They are hopeful to the last. An Abolition war, therefore, includes Union, Constitution, Republican institutions, and all else that goes to make up the greatness and glory of our common country. Home Causes Effects Battles Generals Lincoln's Speeches Abolitionists Sources Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in 1818. Ask why it was for the annexation of Texas, and it answers, slavery. The issue before us is a living issue. BlackPast.org is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization. We had come to detest the principle by which slavery had a strong representation in Congress. The South is logical and consistent. “Let us have peace.” Yes, let us have peace, but let us have liberty, law, and justice first. I will not stop here to blame and denounce the past; but I will say that the most of the blunders and disasters of the earlier part of the war might have been avoided had our armies and generals not repelled the only true friends the Union cause had in the rebel states. Good, wise, and generous men at the North, is power and out of power, for whose good intentions and patriotism we must all have the highest respect, doubt the wisdom of observing this memorial day, and would have us forget and forgive, strew flowers alike and lovingly, on rebel and on loyal graves. Frederick Douglass is thought to be one of the greatest men of the Civil War era. Who was going to fight for slavery in the Union? In 1861, the nation erupted into civil war over the issue of slavery. ‎A former slave, self-taught writer, editor, and public servant, Frederick Douglass was also among the foremost leaders of the abolitionist movement. But I am one of those who think this rebellion—inaugurated and carried on for a cause so unspeakably guilty and distinguished by barbarities which would extort a cry of shame from the painted savage—is quite enough for the whole lifetime of any one nation, though the lifetime should cover the space of a thousand years. While the major part of antislavery profession is based upon devotion to the Union rather than hostility to slavery, there is danger of a slaveholding peace. They have but to cross the rebel lines to be hailed by the traitors as countrymen, clansmen, kinsmen, and brothers beloved in a common conspiracy. Whence came the guilty ambition equal to this atrocious crime. He would save the Union with slavery or without slavery. The Republic disappeared. When we were merely fighting for the old Union the world looked coldly upon our government. If accomplished, our glory as a nation will be complete, our peace will flow like a river, and our foundation will be the everlasting rocks. It began with few and now, behold, the country is full of armed men, ready, with courage and fortitude, to make the wisest and best idea of American statesmanship the law of the land. Slavery—the peculiar institution—is aptly fitted to produce just such patriots, who first plunder and then seek to destroy their country. Civil War Letter; Frederick Douglass's Speech "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July" Answers to Questions: 1. Four years ago we were sure that the slave states would not rebel, but if they did we were sure it would be a very short rebellion. Almost in the twinkling of an eye, the latent forces of despotism rallied. Forego a bottle of soda and donate its cost to us for the information you just learned, and feel good about helping to make it available to everyone! Slaves became free in 1863, and everything changed for black Americans. In this speech, Douglass calls on Americans to remember the war for what it was—a struggle between an army fighting to protect slavery and a nation reluctantly transformed into a … I have applauded that paper and do now applaud it, as a wide measure—while I detest the motive and principle upon which it is based. Few men, however great their wisdom, are permitted to see the end from the beginning. (1864) Rev. Under the teachings of their great leader they admit into their form of government no disturbing force. We are now wading into the third year of conflict with a fierce and sanguinary rebellion, one which, at the beginning of it, we were hopefully assured by one of our most sagacious and trusted political prophets would be ended in less than ninety days; a rebellion which, in its worst features, stands alone among rebellions a solitary and ghastly horror, without a parallel in the history of any nation, ancient or modern; a rebellion inspired by no love of liberty and by no hatred of oppression, as most other rebellions have been, and therefore utterly indefensible upon any moral or social grounds; a rebellion which openly and shamelessly sets at defiance the world’s judgment of right and wrong, appeals from light to darkness, from intelligence to ignorance, from the ever-increasing prospects and blessings of a high and glorious civilization to the cold and withering blasts of a naked barbarism; a rebellion which even at this unfinished stage of it counts the number of its slain not by thousands nor by tens of thousands, but by hundreds of thousands; a rebellion which in the destruction of human life and property has rivaled the earthquake, the whirlwind and the pestilence that waketh in darkness and wasteth at noonday. Mr. Calhoun, and not Mr. Seward, is the original author of the doctrine of the irrepressible conflict. Ask why it is now in favor of the habeas corpus, when rebels and traitors are the applicants for its benefits, and it answers, slavery. Hence we have been talking of the importance of carrying on the war within the limits of a Constitution broken down by the very people in whose behalf the Constitution is pleaded! Though it has lost in members, it retains all the elements of its former power and malevolence. They are valueless in the presence of twenty hundred millions invested in human flesh. Haiti and Liberia are recognized. Well, let us thank the Democracy for teaching us this word. Frederick Douglass Civil War Douglass knew that in order to abolish slavery a great change must occur. The speech, reported in the New York Tribune, appears below. The hour is one of hope as well as danger. He saw the conflict as the seismic event needed to end slavery in America. Say not that I am indifferent to the horrors and hardships of the war. Elsewhere we may find peace, but it will be a hollow and deceitful peace. President Lincoln introduced his administration to the country as one which would faithfully catch, hold and return runaway slaves to their masters. Oration by Frederick Douglass, Delivered on the Occasion of the Unveiling of the Freedmen's Monument in Memory of Abraham Lincoln, in Lincoln Park, Washington, D.C. (1876) Thomas Ball's Freedman’s Memorial , also known as the Emancipation Memorial, depicting Abraham Lincoln as the Great Emancipator, was commissioned by the St. Louis Western Sanitary Commission and erected in … His childhood, up until age 12, was spent on a plantation that may have been owned by his father. Governor Seymour charges us with prolonging the war, and I say the longer the better if it must be so—in order to put an end to the hell-black cause out of which the rebellion has risen. These new apostles of peace call themselves Peace Democrats, and boast that they belong to the only party which can restore the country to peace. One wave brings its treasure from the briny deep, but another often sweeps it back to its primal depths. For one, I am not careful to deny this charge. Union without unity is, as we have seen, body without soul, marriage without love, a barrel without hoops, which falls at the first touch. There are vacant space at my hearthstone which I shall rejoice to see filled again by the boys who once occupied them, but which cannot be thus filled while the war lasts, for they have enlisted “during the war.”. Frederick Douglass, “Speech delivered in Madison Square, New York, Decoration Day.” 1877. Nothing is better calculated to effect the desired change than the slow, steady and certain progress of the war. Elsewhere we may find prosperity, but it will be a transient prosperity. It began low and has risen high. The loyal North is less definite in regard to the necessity of principles of national unity. It was not the Confederate rag, but the glorious Star-Spangled Banner. I know that times have changed very rapidly, and that we have changed them. Had we been wise we should have recognized the war at the outset as at once the signal and the necessity for a new order of social and political relations among the whole people. In every rebel state it proved itself stronger than the Union, stronger than the Constitution, and stronger than the Republican institutions can become possible. I know we have recently gained a great political victory; but it remains to be seen whether we shall wisely avail ourselves of its manifest advantages. The Revolution of 1848 was one of the grandest that ever dazzled a gazing world. It has now assumed a saintly character. It is silent in victory but vehement and dangerous in defeat. In common with the American people generally, I feel the prolongation of the war a heavy calamity, private as well as public. Had slavery been abolished in the Border States at the very beginning of the war, as it ought to have been—had it been abolished in Missouri, as it would have been but for Presidential interference—there would now be no rebellion in the Southern states, for, instead of having to watch these Border States, as they have done, our armies would have marched in overpowering numbers directly upon the rebels and overwhelmed them. It has been given a thousand times from this and other platforms. His withering 1852 … Dr. Buchanan and his Democratic friends had given us up and were preparing to celebrate the nations’ funeral. We naturally prefer the bright side, but when there is a dark side it is folly to shut our eyes to it or deny its existence. On January 13, 1864, Frederick Douglass was invited to deliver a speech before the Woman’s Loyal League at the Cooper Institute in New York City. It has driven Mason, the shameless man hunter, from London, where he never should have been allowed to stay for an hour, except as a bloodhound is tolerated in Regent Park for exhibition. The Democratic party, though defeated in the elections last fall, is still a power. Elsewhere we may find greatness and renown, but if these are based upon anything less substantial than justice they will vanish, for righteousness alone can permanently exalt a nation. In a speech delivered on November 15, 1867, Douglass said: "A man's rights rest in three boxes. Centering on a vision of centuries-long historical connection, Douglass’s discussion of William the Silent demonstrates the degree to which Civil War literature exceeds the Civil War itself, extending compositionally across the nineteenth century and imaginatively across time and space. Around these two ideas their manners, morals, politics, religion and laws revolve. Frederick Douglass worked tirelessly to make sure that emancipation would be one of the war's outcomes. by Bill Batson On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave who would become one of the most powerful public figures in 19th century America, gave his most memorable speech in Rochester, New York, entitled “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” Fidelity to justice and liberty in the Civil war largely by collectively forgetting what war... A 15-acre estate, called Cedar Hill, in any great emergency, be true to themselves the of... A thousand times from this and other black leaders engaged with Confederate sympathizers in speech! Into power, and again slavery is the Fourth of July '' answers to Questions: 1 this is... Type i ’ ve ever encountered best of its type i ’ ve posted it before, another! Establish the Union manners, morals, politics, religion and laws revolve change. 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