“By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yea! we wept when we remembered Zion. We
hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there, they that carried us away
captive, required of us a song; and they who wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us
one of the songs of Zion. How can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? If I forget thee,
O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue
cleave to the roof of my mouth.”
Fellow citizens; above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions!
whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, today, rendered more intolerable by the
jubilee shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding
children of sorrow this day, “may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue
cleave to the roof of my mouth!” To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to
chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would
make me a reproach before God and the world. My subject, then, fellow-citizens, is AMERICAN
SLAVERY. I shall see, this day, and its popular characteristics, from the slave's point of view.
Standing, there, identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not
hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never
looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July! Whether we turn to the declarations of the past,
or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and
revolting. 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! “I will not equivocate; I will not
excuse;” I will use the severest language I can command; and yet not one word shall escape
me that any man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a
slaveholder, shall not confess to be right and just.
But I fancy I hear some one of my audience say, it is just in this circumstance that you and
your brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind. Would you
argue more, and denounce less, would you persuade more, and rebuke less, your cause would
be much more likely to succeed. But, I submit where all is plain there is nothing to be argued.
What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? On what branch of the subject
do the people of this country need light? Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man?
That point is conceded already. Nobody doubts it. The slave-holders themselves acknowledge
it in the enactment of laws for their government. They acknowledge it when they punish
disobedience on the part of the slave. There are seventy-two crimes in the State of Virginia,
which, if committed by a black man (no matter how ignorant he be), subject him to the
punishment of death; while only two of the same crimes will subject a white man to the like
punishment. What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and
responsible being. The manhood of the slave is conceded. It is admitted in the fact that
Southern statute books are covered with enactments forbidding, under severe fines and
penalties, the teaching of the slave to read or to write. When you can point to any such laws,
in reference to the beasts of the field, then I may consent to argue the manhood of the slave.
When the dogs in your streets, when the fowls of the air, when the cattle on your hills, when
the fish of the sea, and the reptiles that crawl, shall be unable to distinguish the slave from a
brute, then will I argue with you that the slave is a man .
For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the negro race. Is it not
astonishing that, while we are ploughing, planting and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical
tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron,
copper, silver and gold; that, while we are reading, writing and cyphering, acting as clerks,
merchants and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors,
editors, orators and teachers; that, while we are engaged in all manner of enterprises
common to other men, digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding
sheep and cattle on the hillside, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as
husbands, wives and children, and, above all, confessing and worshipping the Christian's God,