| |
|
Source: McIntire, Suzanne, ed. American Heritage Book of Great American Speeches for Young People. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 2001. Frederick
Douglass As
a slave in Maryland, Frederick Douglass taught himself to read and write
and studied carefully the first book be bought himself, a children's book
of speeches. He escaped to New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1838 at the age
of 21 and later sailed to Britain to avoid recapture. There he found many
friends at antislavery societies and made speeches to enlist support
against slavery in the United States. When English friends paid 150 pounds
for his freedom, he was able to return and gave this address on a slave's
view of patriotism on his first speaking tour after his arrival home. Ours
is a glorious land, and from across the Atlantic we welcome those who are
stricken by the storms of despotism. Yet the damning fact remains, there
is not a rood of earth under the stars and the eagle on your flag, where a
man of my complexion can stand free. There is no mountain so high, no
plain so extensive, no spot so sacred, that it can secure to me the right
of liberty. Wherever waves the star-spangled banner there the bondman may
be arrested and hurried back to the jaws of Slavery. This is your
"land of the free," your "home of the brave." . . . I
never knew what freedom was till I got beyond the limits of the American
eagle. When I first rested my head on a British Island, I felt that the
eagle might scream, but from its talons and beak I was free, at least for
a time.... I
know this kind of talk is not agreeable to what are called patriots.
Indeed some have called me a traitor.... Two things are necessary to make
a traitor. One is, he shall have a country. I believe if I had a country,
I should be a patriot. I think I have all the feelings necessary-all the
moral material, to say nothing about the intellectual. I do not know that
I ever felt the emotion, but sometimes thought I had a glimpse of it. When
I have been delighted with the little brook that passes by the cottage in
which I was born, with the woods and the fertile fields, I felt a sort of
glow which I suspect resembles a little what they call patriotism. I can
look with some admiration on your wide lakes, your fertile fields, your
enterprise, your industry, your many lovely institutions. I can read with
pleasure your Constitution to establish justice and secure the blessings
of liberty to posterity. Those are precious sayings to my mind. But
when I remember that the blood of four sisters and one brother is making
fat the soil of Maryland and Virginia when I remember that an aged
grandmother ... reared twelve children for the Southern [slave] market,
and these one after another ... were torn from her bosom-when I remember
that when she became too much racked for toil, she was turned out by a
professed Christian master to grope her way in the darkness of old age,
literally to die with none to help her, and the institutions of this
country sanctioning and sanctifying this crime, I have no words of eulogy,
I have no patriotism. How can I love a country where the blood of my own
blood, the flesh of my own flesh, is now toiling under the lash? ... No,
I make no pretension to patriotism. So long as my voice can be heard on
this or the other side of the Atlantic, I will hold up America to the
lightning scorn of moral indignation. In doing this, I shall feel myself
discharging the duty of a true patriot; for he is a lover of his country
who rebukes and does not excuse its sins.
|
| District 88 | Addison Trail | Academics | Athletics | Calendar | Map | Resources |