What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?
Assigned by 1 of the 9 reading lists, catalogue entry only
- Written
- 1852
- Language
- English
- Length
- Short · 35 ppunder 120 pages
- Difficulty
- Moderate2 of 5 for a first-year reader
We recommendFrederick Douglass: Selected Speeches and WritingsLawrence Hill Books, 1999Philip Foner's collection, abridged by Yuval Taylor, prints the speech whole with its date and occasion.
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An Independence Day oration delivered at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York, on 5 July 1852, at the invitation of a local antislavery society. Douglass begins by praising the founders and the Declaration, then turns the occasion against his audience: the holiday is theirs and not his, and to the slave the celebration is mockery. He refuses to argue that slavery is wrong, saying the case needs no proof, and instead indicts the churches, the press and the Fugitive Slave Act. He ends by reading the Constitution as an antislavery document and predicting the system's fall.
No reading guide yet
The catalogue entry above is complete: the dates, the form, the themes and every program that assigns What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? are verified against each program's published list.
What is missing is the part that takes real work: the summary, the key passages, and a recommended translation. The edition named below is the one most programs assign, so the buy links are useful already.