07/04/2026
On this 250th anniversary of American Independence, we remember Frederick Douglass. Born into slavery, he was a reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman who became the most influential leader of the African-American civil rights movement in the 19th century, as well as the most photographed American in the 1800s. Frederick Douglass held a deeply critical and adversarial view of James Buchanan, viewing him as a weak leader who acted as a "miserable tool of traitors" due to his influence on the Dred Scott decision and consistent appeasement of Southern slaveholders. James Buchanan’s administration actively cooperated in a legal effort to apprehend and extradite Frederick Douglass to Virginia in the aftermath of John Brown's 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry.
On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass delivered a scathing keynote address arguing that for an enslaved person, Independence Day is a day of mourning that exposes America's hypocrisy regarding liberty, justice, and human cruelty. It reads in part:
“What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. . . . I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies. The existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism a sham, your humanity a base pretense, and your Christianity a lie. It destroys your moral power abroad; it corrupts your politicians at home. It saps the foundation of religion; it makes your name a hissing, and a bye-word to a mocking earth. It is the antagonistic force in your government, the only thing that seriously disturbs and endangers your Union. It fetters your progress; it is the enemy of improvement, the deadly foe of education; it fosters pride; it breeds insolence; it promotes vice; it shelters crime; it is a curse to the earth that supports it; and yet, you cling to it, as if it were the sheet anchor of all your hopes. Oh! Be warned! Be warned! A horrible reptile is coiled up in your nation’s bosom; the venomous creature is nursing at the tender breast of your youthful republic; for the love of God, tear away, and fling from you the hideous monster, and let the weight of twenty millions crush and destroy it forever!”
On this day, may we celebrate how far our nation has come, but remember those who have fought for the virtues we have always claimed to uphold.
