Frederick Douglass Research Paper

Slavery of the Human Species The United States Declaration of Independence in 1776 was the beginning for this nation. A few years later the Constitution was ratified with the first ten amendments consisting of the Bill of Rights in 1789. In the century to come the nation will be built on slave sweat and blood for the commerce and slavery of the human species. To strengthen this viewpoint there will be use of James R. Bradley, Letter to Lydia Maria Child (June 3, 1834) and Frederick Douglass, "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro" (July 5, 1852).
James R. Bradley was a slave in Arkansas where he was working to buy his freedom. Bradley wrote to Lydia Maria Child on June 3, 1834 since she was an abolitionist author and editor of an antislavery
He challenged the national holiday of July Fourth with his speech titled “The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro” which was published on July 5, 1852. In his speech Douglass states that “America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future” since he truly understood what the nation had become. Douglass has had a first person account of the oppression and slavery in the hands of Americans and argues that 4th of July is not a day to rejoice but to never forget the atrocious actions against Africans. In his address to the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society one of his memorable statements was when he defines the meaning of July Fourth to the American slave as he states:
“To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages”