Frederick Douglass- "What To The Slave is the Fourth of July"

A July Fourth stage without a full share of freedom is a hard place to stand, which is exactly why Frederick Douglass chose July 5th. We dig into the strategy and soul of his 1852 address—why he scorched national hypocrisy, invoked Exodus, and still anchored his case in the “saving principles” of the Declaration of Independence. With Dr. Paul Carrese, we follow the speech from its blistering center to its surprising turn toward hope, and explore how a former slave could call the Constitution a “glorious liberty document.”

Across this conversation, we unpack the political and moral context of the Fugitive Slave Act, the religious cadence that gave Douglass a prophetic voice, and the constitutional argument that split abolitionists. Where William Lloyd Garrison saw a pro‑slavery compact, Douglass argued the Constitution, read by its purposes, could be a weapon against bondage. We connect those ideas to Lincoln’s later stance and the emerging Republican movement, tracing how founding texts became instruments for abolition instead of obstacles to it.

What emerges is a model of reflective patriotism: love a country enough to demand it live up to itself. We talk about why excerpts miss the speech’s architecture, how hope differs from optimism, and what it means to pursue reform at a generational scale—from the Thirteenth Amendment to civil rights a century later. If you’re an educator or a curious citizen, you’ll leave with a clear map to read the whole address, teach its tensions, and use its framework to think about present fights over rights and law.

If this conversation opened something up for you, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review telling us where you stand on Douglass’s “glorious liberty document” claim.

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Transcript

Setting The Stage: Douglass And 1852

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to Civics in the Year. I am very excited to once again talk to Dr. Paul Careese. And today's document that we're talking about is Frederick Douglass, What to the Slave is the Fourth of July. And this is 1852. So Dr. Carece, thank you so much again for being with us. Why is Frederick Douglass's address in 1852, What is the Slave, What to the Slave is the Fourth of July, such a significant statement, not only about the abolitionist movement against slavery, but also an American political thought.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

Yes, thank you, Liz. Frederick Douglass should remind all of us Americans, citizens who won't ever be president of the United States. We have a political culture we're obsessed on the presidency. There are American figures in political and civic life who are more important than most presidents. Frederick Douglass is one of them. This extraordinary figure, born into slavery, escapes from slavery, has started to learn to read and write while a slave, and continues his self-education in a way he's a parallel to Abraham Lincoln in this sense, extraordinarily well educated about moral, political, social, historical topics and about America. A striking thing about him is that there was this new technology in the 19th century called the camera to take photographic pictures. He's one of the most, if not the most, photographed person in the 19th century in America. All these different striking poses of Douglas. And so here we find him in 1852. He's already published what we would now call an autobiography, the narratives. It's one of three autobiographies he writes during his very long life. So he's in he's in upstate New York. He's moved to Rochester, New York. He's already a prominent figure in the abolitionist movement, arguing that slavery has to be declared illegal in the United States. And up in Rochester, New York, he's asked by the Ladies Anti-Slavery Society to give a Fourth of July address. We in the 21st century, and for a long time, I'm I'm almost 60, you know, we don't associate the Fourth of July with addresses. We associate the 4th of July with celebrations and not really with words or arguments or addresses, but the convention

The Fifth Of July Decision

SPEAKER_01 2:40

in the 19th century and well into the 20th century is that the 4th of July is a moment where, sure, you might have a celebration or a party and some fireworks, but you also hear somebody talk about why this matters. You hear an address. So he's invited and he says, thank you, but not quite. I will speak to you, but on the 5th of July, not the 4th of July. And this is because, and the ladies, Anti-Slavery Society in Rochester says, okay, we accept that. Because the backdrop for this obviously is, you know, slavery still exists in the United States in 1852. But more specifically, it's the Missouri Compromise of 1850. And fugitive slave laws related to that, which in Douglas's view have it have given away too much. I mean, if you're an abolitionist, any further compromise perpetuation about slavery is giving away too much. But this one was really bad. This was worse than the 1820 compromise because it uh gave a kind of legal and moral legitimacy to hunting down escaped slaves in the northern states. And and so he's trying to make the point, not only am I not really an American in the full sense, because slavery still exists, I'm free. But given the direction the country is going, I'm

Faith, Scripture, And Moral Indictment

SPEAKER_01 4:15

even less free. Things are worse for me as an escaped slave than they were just a couple of years ago. So that's part of the moral stance and statement of the address. And to be perfectly honest, you know, so it's a it's a a very religious community, this the the women's, uh the ladies' anti-slavery society, and and northern New York generally, the Finger Lakes region in New York and Seneca Falls and Rochester. Uh so the address is full of religious and biblical language as well as legal arguments about the meanings of the of the Declaration of Independence and of the Constitution. And you know, not surprising to anybody who knows about the history of the arguments about abolitionism and slavery and civil rights movement from in the 19th century to the 20th century, you know, the a major analogy, grounding of all of this is the Jewish people escaping slavery under Pharaoh in Egypt in the Old Testament or the Hebrew Bible. So uh Douglas himself has a prophetic voice, as many civil rights figures do. Uh, the the most famous for your your you know people like you and me alive now is the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, right? The religious figures. Douglas is not a minister, but he's adopting this strident, prophetic, religious language, a condemnation of America. Its first condemnation of Americans as Christians for having perpetuated slavery now 70 years beyond the founding, more than 70 years beyond the founding, right? Of the founding of the Constitution. That legal political hypocrisy, but also as Christians, that that slavery's not gotten any better, it's gotten worse as a condition across these three-quarters of a century. So the this the tone of severe, biting condemnation about the failure of Christians, of white Christians, to live up to their religious belief that we are all children of God. And don't you Christians read this thing called the Old Testament as well? Isn't one of the most striking things about that? You know, the the exodus from Egypt, from Pharaoh. But here we have all these pharaohs around in the United States of America who think it's fine to enslave people. So he does turn at some point to say, on the other hand, I'm a patriot. I'm an American patriot. I may not, because of your laws and your moral failings, I may not be equally an American to you. So I can't celebrate the 4th of July the way you do. I'm speaking to you on the 5th of July, right? But on the other hand, I am a patriot about America. And he uses a phrase at one point about the Declaration

Saving Principles Of The Declaration

SPEAKER_01 7:20

of Independence that it contains saving principles. And this is crucial. Now, we we have talked about in another episode the Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments from just four years earlier, with which Frederick Douglass was literally quite substantially involved. He's there at the Seneca Falls Convention about women's rights. So, in a way, this is not a new view that the Declaration should be invoked and used to achieve reform of these major failings, sins of the United States of America, both women's rights and slavery and abolitionism. But the saving principles are being totally whatever metaphors, the different metaphors you use, you know, swamped, flooded, a storm, clouds, I mean, you know, forgotten. So we ha we today have extraordinary work to do uh to call out uh the uh uh blindness about the the the discarding of the disregard of these saving principles of the Declaration of Independence. And we must insist that we make the political and legal reforms uh that are absolutely needed to live up to those principles. So it's excoriating for most of the per prophetic denunciation. You have sinned, you have sinned in all these ways, right? But there's still this view that it's not the fault of the Declaration of Independence, it's not the fault of America. America itself is not useless and hopeless. And then at a certain point he says, and it's not even the fault of the Constitution that we still have slavery and that slavery has gotten worse. So it's a very long address. We have mostly because of modern technologies, we in the 21st century have very short attention spans. We can usually hold our concentration delight of a text message. This, if I read the whole thing aloud, I mean it had to be an hour long in his dramatic way of reading. I'm not sure it could be longer, but uh so it's a long, complicated address, and you have to stick to the end, folks. Because it could seem like, and it often is just excerpted today, only for the parts condemning America. America is a fraud, America is hypocritical, America has sinned, America has failed. That is there. It's three-quarters of the address, I guess, you know. But but he plants some seeds along the way, but it's not the fault of the Declaration. It's our fault not living up to it. And then the conclusion is much more hopeful about it.

SPEAKER_00 10:08

And I will say, teachers, if you are listening to this, there is, I believe NPR did it, and I will link it in the show notes, where they actually had descendants read Frederick Douglass's, you know, parts of What to the Slave is the Fourth of July. So that could be a really good kind of introduction to your students. Dr. Careese is right. I think the last version I saw was about 15

Read The Whole Speech, Not Excerpts

SPEAKER_00 10:30

pages. It is worth the digging into. So I just, if you are an educator listening to this or a student, please definitely give that a read. So, Dr. Careese, Douglas disagrees with other abolitionists about the Constitution and the relationship between the Declaration and the Constitution.

SPEAKER_01 10:50

Yes, he does. I mean, at the point in the text where he uses what it becomes the title of it, so what to the American slave is the Fourth of July, the Fourth of July is a great disappointment, but also still a source of hope because the Declaration contains the saving principles. And in his view, Douglas's view, the Declaration informs the Constitution of the United States. And the Constitution of the United States is not a pro-slavery document. So

Constitution: Pro‑Slavery Or Liberty Document

SPEAKER_01 11:26

we're we're going to do another episode on this disagreement among abolitionists. Arguably the most famous abolitionist per se, Garrison, along with many other abolitionists, says the problem here is the Constitution. The Constitution never uses the word slavery, okay. But it's got all these clauses that actually protect the legal status of slavery. And that's why for you know these 60, 70 years beyond the Constitution we still have slavery and in fact slavery spreading. And Douglas says no. It's our fault. This this the subsequent generations. The Constitution itself is not pro-slavery. It it needed to make compromises with slavery in order to exist as the Constitution. There never would have been the Convention in 1787 in Philadelphia producing not just a revision to the Articles, but a replacement, a new Constitution. There never would have been a Constitution produced by that Convention unless there had been a compromise. If it had been abolitionist, the Southern states would have walked out and that would have been it. But Douglass says the text of the Constitution cannot bear the weight of an interpretation which says it's pro-slavery, that it endorses slavery. It is clearly, in Douglass's reading, anti-slavery, grudgingly accepting, you know, and that it's a tough argument for Douglass. The clause about representation in the House of Representatives, including three-fifths of persons, right? Three-fifths of the slave population in the Southern State will be included to make up the population, which is the basis of apportionment for seats in the House, right? And other clauses. It's a tough argument, but he just says none of that is pro-slavery. It's the grudging acceptance. So there's a very dramatic statement. And I should say one other element of the address is he repeatedly uses the phrase, the opening phrase to the Lady's Anti-Slavery Society is friends and fellow citizens, which is the same language that George Washington uses to open his farewell address. I don't know if that's accidental or it's just a 19th-century trope, but friends and fellow citizens. And then in this extraordinary moment, not long before the end of the address, he says, fellow citizens, and there's this clause about the Constitution. In that instrument, I hold there is neither warrant, license, nor sanction of this hateful thing, slavery. But interpreted as it ought to be interpreted, the Constitution is a glorious liberty document. And here I have to pause. In the printed version of the address, he has it in all caps, we would say. It's all capital words. Glorious liberty document. Let me just read a little more. Read its preamble, consider its purposes. Is slavery among them? Is it at the gateway? Or is it in the temple? It is neither. It's an incredibly dramatic. So it would be interesting. I didn't know the NPR reading of it, right? It's an incredibly dramatic rhetorical performance. So this is a this is very similar to Abraham Lincoln's view and what becomes the Republican Party

Douglass Versus Garrison On The Constitution

SPEAKER_01 15:00

in the 1850s. That the Declaration is true. We have to rediscover that. The Constitution is true and right. We just have interpreted badly, or we we have failed to live up to both of these founding documents. But the Constitution itself is not pro-slavery. So we, in this section of the abolitionist movement, and then Lincoln and the Republican Party, we need to live up to the true meaning of the Declaration and the true meaning of the Constitution. We don't need to discard them. And that will be the path forward to figuring out how to put slavery in Lincoln's phrase, to put slavery on its path toward extinction. Whatever political compromises have to happen, to be moving in the right direction, that we are clearly all in agreement. It's a problem, it's a moral evil, it violates our founding principles as Americans, and we need to be moving in the direction of getting rid of it. The Declaration and the Constitution are our foundational resources for that. They're not a stumbling block.

SPEAKER_00 16:03

And listeners, I know that you're probably like, I want to hear more about this debate on the Constitution not being a pro-slavery document. That's actually going to be our next episode with Dr. Creese, so make sure you tune in. So, Dr. Kreese, am I right in saying that we see a larger message in this 1850 true address by Douglas about hope and reform in American politics, America's kind of history of self-government?

SPEAKER_01 16:32

Yes. And I mentioned a little while ago that Douglas does use the phrase of patriotism, the word, the concept of patriotism in the address as if to say, I'm not giving up on America. I may be a second or third or fourth class person and citizen because of what you have done, the white majority have done. I do want to fully celebrate the 4th of July, one day with you. But I'm I'm not, therefore, less patriotic. And the and the final clauses of this 1852 address by Douglas invoke hope. He says, I therefore leave off where I began with hope. So the preceding paragraph, right before finishing, is allow me to say in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented, I mean it is the most of the address, as I said, is just excoriating about America's failure and sins. But the the signs are there if we will see them and and and support them of the inevitable doom of slavery. So he's he quotes a passage of scripture, the arm of the Lord is not shortened, and adds, and the doom of slavery is certain. So he has hope, but hope is not optimism. Hope is not this is going to be a piece of cake. Hope is not anything

Hope, Patriotism, And Long Reform

SPEAKER_01 18:20

that's simple. It's a very complicated address. But I did want to say it, as with the Seneca Falls Declaration, as we talked about in that episode, taking 75 years, basically, or 70 years to get from the Seneca Falls Declaration to the 19th Amendment being fully ratified in 1920. Yes, some states some states had provided for women's suffrage before 1920. But generational, multi-generational, many decades. And this from 1852 to the 13th Amendment, and then a century beyond that to the civil rights movement, right? This is a long, long slog and struggle. But Douglas is saying we should have hope on our side. Don't despair about America, be patriots and be reformers. So the the between the two, the Snake-Falls Declaration and this extraordinary address, it makes us think, well, what does patriotism mean? Patriotism for these figures, Katie Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, it doesn't mean you have a sort of only sentimental, unthinking love of America, and America is, you know, absolutely perfect. It means you do love America, or you're grateful for America, but you also can say, and America, you need to live up to yourself. America, you need to fully be yourself. There is this fundamental problem or that fundamental problem. And we, and part of being a patriot, is arguing about it. We all love America, and now we're going to argue about it. Now that's complicated. But as we talked about in other episodes with, you know, with Tocqueville, this is Tocqueville's idea of a reflective or considered or rational patriotism. And this extraordinary address on the 5th of July by Frederick Douglass in 1852 is a classic example of that.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

Dr. Craese, thank you so much. I really appreciate how you're kind of threading us through history because I'm thinking back to the Declaration of Independence, you know, episodes that we did. I'm thinking back to just a lot of different episodes. And I'm thinking forward too, because when you talk about Douglas, I can see echoes of him in the civil rights movement and in later things. So it's it's so fun to do this podcast and to have people like you and Dr. Beinberg on as repeat guests because we are kind of building that thread of American history. So I greatly appreciate it. And I'm really excited to do our next one.

SPEAKER_01 20:55

Okay. Thank you, Liz. Thanks for your good work.