America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.

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.

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

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.

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!”

Fellow-citizens; ABOVE YOUR NATIONAL, TUMULTUOUS JOY, I HEAR THE MOURNFUL WAIL OF MILLIONS! whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them.

You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day?

Rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought STRIPES AND DEATH to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine.

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.

Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us?...

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