Frederick Douglass Freedom Speech

Frederick Douglass's “What is your 4th of July to me” speech is a very moving speech. In his speech, he talks about how the United States, is hypocritical in all of eachs preachings. The liberty, justice for all, equality, and many other phrases stated in the constitution and other American documents are hypocritical. Slavery is going on in the United States at this time and they are preaching about equality. Many of the writers of the constitution were slave owners and remained so until death, even post independence. This speech points out exactly how I feel about the writers of the constitution. Sure they were freedom fighters but, they still kept freedom away from others because of greed, and the color of their skin. That is not what the constitution or America is about. The founding ideals of the United states are Equality, Rights, Liberty, Opportunity, and Democracy. Douglass’s speech was more about equality in my opinion. in 1776 equality meant that any man, that was white and not a female was to be treated how oneself wanted to be treated. It meant that, regardless of wealth and religion all were equal. This ideal now means anybody and everybody who feels that they are part of the United States, is equal to everyone else. The United States, in my opinion is doing well in terms of equality. Now that the United States has learned from the mistakes in the past, I feel that we as a nation have moved forward. In 1852 Douglass’s speech was a message to all slave owners, that it has to stop. This is not what the United States was supposed to be about, and if you continue owning slaves and agreeing with the constitution you are a hypocrite. This was a very important topic for Douglass because i feel that he really believed in the founding ideals, but he just wanted them to actually be implemented, and for Americans to actually wake up and see what is going on.