Declarations in DialogueFrederick Douglass,“What to the Slave

is the Fourth of July?”

Are Enlightenment promises of equality and liberty best pursued using the language/framework of rights and citizenship within the nation, or is a more expansive language and vision required?

“Declaration of Sentiments”: “We insist that [women] have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of the United States.” (249)

“Whereas, The great precept of nature is conceded to be that “man shall pursue his own true and substantial happiness.” Blackstone in his Commentaries remarks, that this law of Nature being coeval with mankind, and dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries and at all times; no human laws are of any validity if contrary to this . . . “ (249)

REFORM? OR SOMETHING MORE

•At the invitation of the Rochester Ladies’ Antislavery Society of Rochester

•500-600 people, 12 1/2 cents each

•FD letter to Gerrit Smith: 2-3 weeks of preparation (cf. opening: “no elaborate preparation”; “I have been able to throw my thoughts hastily and imperfectly together”)

•Prayer; reading of the Declaration; speech; “universal burst of applause”

John W. Blassingame, ed. The Frederick Douglass Papers. Series One. Speeches, Debates, and Interviews. Vol. 2. 1847-54. New Haven: Yale UP, 1982. 359-88.

Douglass, “What to the Slave . . .?”Delivered July 5th, 1852 - Corinthian Hall

Rochester, New York

•1776: the denial of slavery in the newly formed United States •1805: the independence of Haiti won by an insurgent slave population Slavery in the U.S. in 1852: •Approximately 600,000 Africans shipped as slaves to the US from 16th-19th centuries •Slave and free states divided by the Mason-Dixon Line•Import/export of slaves criminalized in 1808, but internal slave trade was active•1860 US census: 4 million slaves •Slave rebellions: Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner, South Carolina – 1820-30s•Abolitionist movement: William Garrison, the Grimke sisters – 1830s•1850 Fugitive Slave Act

Points of reference 

FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT, 1850

• strengthened 1793 law

• officials who do not arrest runaway slaves are fined

• fines levied against those who assisted runaway slaves

• no requirement of trial; slave owners need only supply an affidavit to capture an escaped slave

• free blacks could be conscripted into slavery

• no rights in court: no right to demand jury trial or to testify

DOUGLASS: BRIEF BIO(BLIGHT 173-78)

CIRCULATION

Request for publication in pamphlet form

700 “subscriptions” on the occasion Published in

Frederick Douglass’ Paper (formerly the North Star), 9 July

1852. Issue 29, col. D: “The Celebration at Corinthian Hall”

From Aristotle’s Rhetoric (Ancient Greek; 4thC BCE)

Epideictic (ceremonial): speeches of praise or blame; concerns the present

some related categories: inaugural address, convocation and graduation speeches, commemoration speeches (MLK Day; 9/11 anniversary) – confirms group values

Forensic (legal): speeches presented in court; concerns the past; judicial decision

Deliberative (political): speeches presented in the assembly; concerns the future; policy formation

SPEECH GENRES

Expectations:

• self-congratulation on the nation’s “birthday”: emphasis on praise

• personal narrative from an escaped slave: an account of suffering, at attitude of humility, to gain sympathy?

What Douglass offers: a series of refusals –

• a refusal to praise Americans for their achievement: “as a people, Americans are remarkably familiar with all the fact which make in their own favor” (154; 366)

• a refusal to place himself among “Americans”: “Why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence?” (155; 367)

• a refusal to argue for abolition: “At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument is needed” (158; 371)

But given D’s wide renown as an abolitionist speaker, and other traditions (sermonic rhetoric, including the jeremiad--a bitter lament; a righteous prophecy of doom), perhaps D’s audience was more prepared than contemporary readers for ironies of stance, (non)argument, and tone

“Douglass the ironist”

[Exordium] (148; 359)

The Present (154; 366)

The Internal Slave Trade (159; 371)

Religious Liberty (163; 376)

The Church Responsible (164; 377)

Religion in England and Religion in America 166; 381)

The Constitution (168; 384)

THE STRUCTURE OF THE SPEECH

EXORDIUM=INTRODUCTION, A CALL TO ATTEND

Douglass: I won’t “grace my speech with any high sounding exordium” (148; 360).

Little learning Modesty - a convention Distance: “between this

platform and the slave plantation, from which I escaped” (148; 360)

“your National Independence”

Several levels of distance established

“the point from which I am compelled to view [the founding fathers] is not, certainly the most favorable” (152; 364)

•instead of praising the accomplishment of a nation, D. marks the childhood of the Republic of America: “Were the nation older, the patriot’s heart might be sadder, and the reformer’s brow heavier” (149; 360)

• hope (a topos – theme or commonplace): “hope is much needed, under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon” (149; 360)

•geological time: analogy of nation to river (149; 361)

•emphasis on men and their actions in the face of oppression than a focus on principles: “To side with the right, against the wrong, with the weak against the strong, and with the oppressed against the oppressor! here lies the merit” (150; 362)

“They were peace men; but they preferred revolution to peaceful submission to bondage. They were quiet men; but they did not shrink from agitating against oppression . . . With them justice, liberty, and humanity were “final;” not slavery and oppression.” (153; 364-65)

Overlays an abolitionist rhetoric onto the revolutionary narrative

“A simple story” (149-56)

• Douglass cites a July 2nd resolution rather than the July 4th Declaration: the act of political dissolution (151; 363)• future direction: “Just here . . . was a startling idea born” (151; 362): an “alarming and revolutionary idea”; he focuses on the dangerous and powerful character of the founding fathers’ actions• an incomplete project: “The 4th of July is the first great fact in your nation’s history--the very ring-bolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny” (152; 363-64). • “That bolt drawn, that chain broken, and all is lost” (152; 364): the ship of state imperiled: crisis• “Their statesmanship looked beyond the passing moment, and stretched away in strength into the distant future” (153; 365)

Figures of speech: river, ship, corner-stone

From “simple story” to precarious chain of destiny

“Fully appreciating the hardship to be encountered, firmly believing in the right of their cause,honorably inviting the scrutiny of an on-looking world,reverently appealing to heaven to attest their sincerity,soundly comprehending the solemn responsibility they were about to assumewisely measuring the terrible odds against them, your fathers, the fathers of this republic, did, most deliberately, under the inspiration of a glorious patriotism, and with a sublime faith in the great principles of justice and freedom, lay deep the corner-stone, of the national superstructure, which has risen and still rises in grandeur around you.” (153; 365)

A SENTENCE LIKE A CORNERSTONE: STYLISTIC TOUR DE FORCE, SINCERE

APPRECIATION, OR ANOTHER OPPORTUNITY FOR IRONY?

Near the end of the first section of the speech, Douglass writes, “Citizens, your fathers made good that resolution. They succeeded; and to-day you reap the fruits of their success. The freedom gained is yours; and you, therefore, may properly celebrate this anniversary” (151; 363), and “Fellow citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic” (152; 364).

What is your response?A.Douglass truly values the achievements of the founding fathers.B.Douglass does not embrace Enlightenment ideals of equality and rights. C.Douglass’ ethos and tone make me uneasy. D.All of the aboveE.Some of the above

Imagine yourself as a member of Douglass’ audience

“ My business is with the present . . . the ever-living now”

“Now is the time, the important time” “ You must live and must die, and you must do your work.

“You have no right to wear out and waste the hard-earned fame of your fathers to cover your indolence” (154; 366).

Washington’s monument built “by the price of human blood,” yet Washington “broke the chains” of his slaves (155; 367).

Enlightenment principles performed rather than asserted

THE PRESENT: FROM STATIC EDIFICE TO STORM-

TOSSED SHIP OF STATE

• Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why I am called upon to speak here today? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? And am I therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?” (155; 367)

“sad sense of disparity between us”; “immeasurable distance”

“By the rivers of Babylon . . .” (156; 368) -- Psalms 137: 1-6: the captive forced to sing

Another bond, another system of values: “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.”

Douglass’s performance is not the command performance of the captive but an act of political freedom

ETHOS: SHARP REMINDERS OF

DISTANCE/DIVISION

“My subject, then fellow-citizens, is AMERICAN SLAVERY. I shall see, this day, and its popular characteristics, from the slave’s point of view.” (156; 368): a refusal of the stance of disinteredness

“America is false to the past . . . present . . . and future” (156; 369) – apocalyptic sense of time; no hope

“Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave . . ., I will in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery—the great sin and shame of America!” (156-57; 369)

“But I fancy I hear some one of my audience say . . . argue more, denounce less; persuade more, rebuke less . . . Where all is plain there is nothing to be argued.” (157; 369)

FROM FAINT PRAISE TO DENUNCIATION: EPIDEICTIC

SPEECH BECOMES DELIBERATIVE (157-69)

1. The slave is a man: legal evidence, but--

“It is enough to affirm the manhood of the negro race”: “We” are ploughing, planting and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools . . . (157; 370) The evidence of manhood and action rather than law and equality

2.The slave owns his (her?) body – “You have already declared it.” How should I look . . . Dividing, and subdividing a discourse to show that men have a“natural right to freedom”; it does not need the devices of argument. “There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, that does not know that slavery is wrong for him” (158; 370).

Douglass ridicules the modes of reasoning and argument, the relatively decorous rhetoric of the Declaration

WHAT DOES NOT NEED TO BE ARGUED:

1. “Behold” - enargeia: bringing vividly before the eyes; human as animal (horse, sheep, swine) (160; 372-73)

Douglass’ narrative: Why here? Young Fred as an observer. His mistress sympathized with him in his horror (160-61; 374)

2. Fugitive Slave Law (162; 375); “religious liberty” - the fusion of religious and civic identities

The law as a “declaration of war”: religion as “an empty ceremony, and not a vital principle requiring active benevolence, justice, love and good will towards man” (163; 377).

(Non)Argument cont. – Internal Slave Trade; religious liberty

3. The church as bulwark of slavery: criticism of Northern ministers who teach that “we ought to obey man’s law before the law of God” (164ff; 377ff).

You can bare your bosom to the storm of British artillery to throw off a threepenny tax on tea; and yet wring the last hard-earned farthing from the grasp of the black laborers of your country” (167; 383)

“You profess to believe ‘that of one blood, God made all nations of men to dwell on the face of the earth’” (Acts 17:26)

You “holds these truths . . .” and yet, you hold in bondage … (167; 383)

4. “National inconsistency”: “The existence of slavery in this country brands your Republicanism . . . a sham, your humanity . . . a base pretense, your Christianity . . . a lie” 167; (383)

COMPARATIVE RELIGION, THE DECLARATION APPEARS

The Constitution as a “glorious liberation document” (168; 384)

Garrison’s position: abolitionists should not vote because America’s government was pro-slavery; rejection of a corrupt political process; freedom in the north for blacks did not grant voting rights

Douglass, 1851: refusing to pursue the vote is acquiescing in discrimination; joined the Liberty and Free Soil parties to get emancipation before major political leaders; the oppressed should participate in the political process

CONSTITUTION

D. still has hope for the country: drawing encouragement from the

Declaration of Independence in the context of internationalism

“walled cities and empires have become unfashionable” (170; 387)

Ethiopianism -- an Africanist African-American philosophy

Garrisonian sentiments: bonds across division within abolitionist movement

PERORATION (169-71; 386-88)

While Enlightenment principles clearly inform Douglass’ speech and the abolition movement, D. pointedly delay the restatement of the general claims of the 1776 Declaration, places them in a skeptical context, and rejects Enlightenment rhetoric: “O! had I the ability . . . I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire” (158; 371)

The rhetorical action of a social movement: “The feeling of the nation must be quickened [roused, startled, exposed,] “crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced”

From subject to citizen to “men and women” to humanity/manhood: who will count as “man”?

From nation of patriots to a global project for freedom: beyond the 1776 Declaration

CONCLUSIONS