What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? to Anti-Slavery Society
07/05/1852 AD said
"What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" is the title now given to his speech. delivered at Corinthian Hall, addressing the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society.
The speech is perhaps the most widely known of all of Frederick Douglass' writings save his autobiographies.
In the speech Douglass claims that the US Constitution is an abolitionist document and not a pro-slavery document:
Fellow-citizens! there is no matter in respect to which, the people of the North have allowed themselves to be so ruinously imposed upon, as that of the pro-slavery character of the Constitution. In that instrument I hold there is neither warrant, license, nor sanction of the hateful thing; but, interpreted as it ought to be interpreted, the Constitution is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT. Read its preamble, consider its purposes. Is slavery among them? Is it at the gateway? or is it in the temple? It is neither.
The speech has since been published under the above title in The Frederick Douglass Papers, Series One, Vol. 2.
Lattitude: 43.1655° N
Longitude: 77.6113° W
Region: North America
Modern Day United States
