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NAACP newsletters, Fort Madison Branch, 1967-1970

1970-02-12 Newsletter, Fort Madison Branch of the NAACP Page 2

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were composed and delivered over a hundred years ago, does one realize just how much America has dragged her feet. An excellent example is the following speech given 1852.

-Delivered by Frederick Douglass, July 4, 1852 to the Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society in Rochester, New York. 

" The papers and placards say that I am to deliver a Fourth of July oration... The fact is, ladies and gentlemen, the distance from this platform and the slave plantation, from which I escaped, is considerable - and the difficulties to be overcome is getting from the latter to the former are by no means slight... You will not, therefore, be surprised, if in what I have to say I evince no elaborate preparation, nor grace my speech with any high sounding exordium. With little experience and with less learning. I have been able to throw my thoughts hastily and imperfectly together; and trusting to your patient and generous indulgence. I will proceed to lay them before you. 
This, for the purpose of this celebration, is the Fourth of July. It is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. It carried your minds back to the day, and to the act of your great deliverance; and to the signs, and to the wonders, associated with that act, and that day. This celebration also marks the beginning of another year of your national life; and reminds you that the Republic of America is now 76-years old. I am glad, fellow citizens, that your nation is so young. Seventy-six years, though a good old age for a man, is but a mere speck in the life of a nation. Three score years and ten is the allotted time for individual men; but nations number their years by thousands. According to this fact, you are, even now, only in the beginning of your national career, still lingering in the period of childhood. I repeat, I am glad this is so. There is hope in the thought, and hope is much needed, under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon. The eye of the reformer is met with angry flashes, portending disastrous times; but his heart may well beat lighter at the thought that America is young, and that she is still in the impressionable stage of her existence. May he not hope that high lessons of wisdom of justice and of truth, will yet give direction to her destiny? Were the nation older, the patriot's heart might be sadder, and the reformer's brow heavier. Its future might be shrouded in gloom, and the hope of its prophets go out in sorrow. There is consolation in the thought that America is young. 
Fellow citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called to speak here today? What have I, or those I represent, to do with you national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in the 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?
Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions ! Then would my task be light, and my burden be easy and delightful. For who is there so cold, that a nation's sympathy could not warm him? Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless beliefs? Who so, stolid and selfish, that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nation's jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? I am not that man. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the lame man leap as an hare."
But such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common - The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and heal-

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-2- were composed and delivered over a hundred years ago, does one realize just how much America has dragged her feet. An excellent example is the following speech given 1852. -Delivered by Frederick Douglass, July 4, 1852 to the Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society in Rochester, New York. " The papers and placards say that I am to deliver a Fourth of July oration... The fact is, ladies and gentlemen, the distance from this platform and the slave plantation, from which I escaped, is considerable - and the difficulties to be overcome is getting from the latter to the former are by no means slight... You will not, therefore, be surprised, if in what I have to say I evince no elaborate preparation, nor grace my speech with any high sounding exordium. With little experience and with less learning. I have been able to throw my thoughts hastily and imperfectly together; and trusting to your patient and generous indulgence. I will proceed to lay them before you. This, for the purpose of this celebration, is the Fourth of July. It is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. It carried your minds back to the day, and to the act of your great deliverance; and to the signs, and to the wonders, associated with that act, and that day. This celebration also marks the beginning of another year of your national life; and reminds you that the Republic of America is now 76-years old. I am glad, fellow citizens, that your nation is so young. Seventy-six years, though a good old age for a man, is but a mere speck in the life of a nation. Three score years and ten is the allotted time for individual men; but nations number their years by thousands. According to this fact, you are, even now, only in the beginning of your national career, still lingering in the period of childhood. I repeat, I am glad this is so. There is hope in the thought, and hope is much needed, under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon. The eye of the reformer is met with angry flashes, portending disastrous times; but his heart may well beat lighter at the thought that America is young, and that she is still in the impressionable stage of her existence. May he not hope that high lessons of wisdom of justice and of truth, will yet give direction to her destiny? Were the nation older, the patriot's heart might be sadder, and the reformer's brow heavier. Its future might be shrouded in gloom, and the hope of its prophets go out in sorrow. There is consolation in the thought that America is young. Fellow citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called to speak here today? What have I, or those I represent, to do with you national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in the 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? Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions ! Then would my task be light, and my burden be easy and delightful. For who is there so cold, that a nation's sympathy could not warm him? Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless beliefs? Who so, stolid and selfish, that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nation's jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? I am not that man. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the lame man leap as an hare." But such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common - The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and heal-