Question/Problem 3: How did ideas and events contribute to the conflict between North and South?

Frederick Douglass, former slave and abolitionist leader, was invited to speak in Rochester, NY, on July 4, 1852. Read the following excerpts from his speech and answer the questions below.

...America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, 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!...

Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? That he is the rightful owner of his own body? You have already declared it. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery?...To do so would be to make myself ridiculous and to offer an insult to you r understanding. There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven that does not know that slavery is wrong for him....

What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted libert y, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your serm ons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy±±a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States at this very hour.

Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.

From Diane Ravitch, ed., The American Reader-- Words That Moved A Nation,
pp. 114-118.

1. Why does Douglass claim that America is false to the past, present, and future?

2. According to Douglass who should own a person?

3. How would Douglass suggest anyone would answer the question, "Do you want to be a slave?"

4. According to Douglass, what does the Fourth of July mean to the American slave?

5. What does Douglass mean by the words "America reigns without a rival?" Where does he say one should look for the answer?

6. Is this the complete text of the speech? How do you know?

7. How would Fitzhugh answer Douglass's statement that "There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven that does not know that slavery is wrong for him...?"