It is afternoon, a day on earth, a black woman sit in solace; Kalima look toward her photo of a prior penumbral eclipse, made in a roadtrip across the usa.
She continue to ignore the yells from her sanguine downstairs; they are ready to go to the July 4th Fireworks parade.
“COME ON!!!… I know you can hear me K! We are now in phase three and I want us to enjoy being outside, none of us have been out in months! PLEASE!”
Kalima lay back on her bed and put on a video online.
She can hear shuffling feet leaving the front door of the brownstone while she watch. She whisper: “see you soon” and continue to watch.
At the end of the video she sit at her writing desk and take out paper and pencil and ruler; she compose a poem using looped cursive penpersonship on clear paper using the ruler she crafted as a guidetool.
A male red winged blackbird sitting on a tree branch outside watch Kalima and see the following on the page, Kalima finished.
I know I’m free, while in an unfree place
To live in a free place… I must rally
Against Time’s steady pace, mortality
What certainty? The best finishing place
Choices I see? Bliss be the unfree place
Bliss out the unfree place, which choice is me?
History state no case… I must rally
Blind gamblin’ me, both length may eat my race
A bird yell free! I wingless… stall my race
Wait in the unfree place, one day for me
I see Time with it’s pace, safe while I see
I will rally, to live in a free place
The small uncaged passerine fly away, singing. Kalima look to the window and go to her bed, and lay thinking, and sleeping.
…
A gentle nudge and a wet kiss on the cheek, wake Kalima up, from a figure unknown of body while familiar in voice.
“Come on K, we are all back now, we want to tell you about our trip, especially little Bee”
“Oh, hey Ma”
Kalima plus her mother embrace.
“Here is some chocolate bars, colored like the flag, I know! but Mister Mohammed made them and I know you support Black business”
Kalima took a whiff of the chocolate, and smiled with yummies.
Her mother pass her a photo of the clan, taken by uncle george.
And, Kalima’s mother pass Kalima another of a firework by uncle george.
Kalima’s mother continue: “Fun…We will meet you downstairs and you can tell us about tonights eclipse ok”
“It’s late, little Bee will want to stay up, so we need to get the hammock out for him”
“ok”: Kalima’s mother leave, and Kalima look to the moon.
Kalima place her chocolate in her minifridge and open her door to the sound of laughter and joy. She smile in the night, for another day.
…
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Frederick Douglass July 5th speech- my replies to some points
I will provide quotations in double bracket and reply in double colon.
<<The task before me is one which requires much previous thought and study for its proper performance. I know that apologies of this sort are generally considered flat and unmeaning. >>
::This opening is true in a very key way. Douglass is admitting the topic he is about to discuss is complex. A log tragedy in modernity is the agenda driven use of communication or past prose. Many people in modernity say the title of this speech is a line in it, what is july 4th to the slave, but that is not the title in my mind. The title of the speech in my mind is "What is the USA?" Frederick douglass goes about defining the usa as he sees it and defends his claim that july 4th being erroneous to a community in the usa, proves the usa needs to be redefined and that it can be redefined. One point that people forget, is that Frederick douglass was a huge believer in the ability of the usa to change. Many white abolitionists opposed slavery but did not think the usa could exist absent it. This is an important idea. Frederick Douglass opposed slavery, wanted betterment for black people, but he opposed what some in modernity and definitely many what abolitionist at the time of this speech may call the "Unwritten constitution" Douglass believed that the legal system of the usa absent the unwritten mentality, which whites in majority absorbed or believed in, was one that could make the usa better than any other country. To be blunt, Frederick Douglass was a black abolitionist, a believer in black power, but he was also a believer in the community that the usa can form will be in the context of human relations better than any before or around it. I must restate myself, Frederick Douglass wanted Black improvement, but he didn't want it in the context of what was and is common in humanity, meaning improvement of one community to the detriment of others. His foresight was true cause if you take out the usa in modern humanity, the acceptance or allowance or positivity toward peaceful active multiracial relations in humanity is much less. ::
<<This, for the purpose of this celebration, is the 4th of July. It is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God.>>
::Speaking to an all white crowd, which most modern people forget to mention, he is suggesting a statement on the identity of the usa, having beforehand cited he is no great historian or student to provide pathways or solutions to the questions he will propose. He is making a clear statement, that July 4th is not the birth of the usa for all people in it. Most in modernity accept that as enslaved people never feel joyed to the country they are enslaved to. But he defends his position through a religiosity not history. He is not saying through history he is making his claim but through a morality, in this case religious. Morality being a code of conduct. ::
<< This celebration also marks the beginning of another year of your national life; and reminds you that the Republic of America is now 76 years old. I am glad, fellow-citizens, that your nation is so young. >>
::This is the beginning of the big philosophical schism between me and frederick douglass, not based on right or wrong but purpose. He does two things in this phrase. he separates the white american nation in the usa with the identity of the usa. HE doesn't say your republic of america, he says the republic of america. He is saying, that while the usa was started by white americans, it is owned by more than white americans. The republic of America is larger than the white american nation in it, even though the white american nation birthed it. Comprehend his position here. Frederick Douglass is not allowing the truth of free black people who mostly fought for the british against the usa to have a role here. He is not using history. he is using philosophy. Most black people at the time frederick douglass spoke this speech did not see themselves as american and only had one true wish and that was to kill white people and flee the usa. It is very important to comprehend that while frederick douglass view may comfort modern black/white/people agenda, it did not comfort he agenda to most black people in the usa during the time he spoke. Frederick Douglass's agenda isn't to the betterment of black people at the time he spoke, he is essentially skipping over the current needs of the enslaved populace to focus on an agenda assuming a phenotypically integrated society is in the future of the usa ::
<<The eye of the reformer is met with angry flashes, portending disastrous times; but his heart may well beat lighter at the thought that America is young, and that she is still in the impressible stage of her existence. May he not hope that high lessons of wisdom, of justice and of truth, will yet give direction to her destiny? >>
::This quote from him proves my point. Douglass is flat out saying that the definition to the usa can still be changed, and that is what he wants. He has already suggested fellow citizenship and a white nation in the usa. He is saying he doesn't want a black exodus; he doesn't want a rival black state, he wants the usa to change. Now many modern people in the usa reading this [7/4/2020] may say, congratulations to frederick douglass. But, you may forget in your modern hubris, the reality that most black people in the 1852 didn't want to be part of the usa or the white nation in it. Thus frederick douglass is speaking against the majority opinion of black people in the usa. I oppose this position of frederick douglass. Comprehend, I am not saying, Frederick Douglass words hold no credence now. What I am saying is, Frederick Douglass is taking a minority opinion in the black community, as the biggest black leader in the usa at the time, and applying it to his public agenda for the entire black community. He is discarding the black community of his time for his hope of the Statian community in the future. I oppose Frederick Douglass curtailing the wants or needs of the black people in his time for the gamble of an unknown future. He is saying, the usa of 1852 dominated by a white nation within it is not completely associated to said white nation and even though the black peoples in the usa, in majority will want to leave the usa to be synonymous with the white nation in it, as a black individual, against the desire of the larger black community, must exist in the usa to force the usa to change. I oppose his leadership. He essentially sacrifices the black community of 1852 for the black community of 2020 ::
<<Your fathers esteemed the English Government as the home government and England as the fatherland. This home government, you know, although a considerable distance from your home, did, in the exercise of its parental prerogatives, impose upon its colonial children, such restraints, burdens and limitations, as, in its mature judgment, it deemed wise, right and proper.>>
::The point here is clear. Frederick Douglass while referring to england is stating a bigger point back to the identity of the usa. His point is that the usa can change in a way beyond england. Which modern audiences must comprehend was idolized deeply by whites in the usa at that time. I argue it took the war between the states to severe Englandphilia as a majority culture in the white nation in the usa ::
<<But, your fathers, who had not adopted the fashionable idea of this day, of the infallibility of government, and the absolute character of its acts, presumed to differ from the home government in respect to the wisdom and the justice of some of those burdens and restraints. >>
::This here is a historical point. He is saying the usa has become complacent. he is urging the usa to change faster, not through war, but through purpose, intention, he is asking what most black people have asked in my lifetime, he is asking whites to change. Though, I will have to add, he is asking whites to change for his agenda is not for blacks to leave or be separate. Remember he wants the white /black/ native/all human union in the usa to be. If his agenda was to segregate black people in the usa from the white nation in the usa, he will not need to ask for the usa to change as dramatically as suggesting the changes of 1776 need to occur [which of course can be argued did in the war between the states]. He even foresaw the bloodiness of such a call, citing the danger of those in 1776 who sided against the british empire ::
<<The madness of this course, we believe, is admitted now, even by England; but , we fear the lesson is wholly lost on our present rulers.>>
::lovely play to the audience, worthless as a line really but good play, he made his money speaking, that is how he achieved white patronage::
<<On the 2d of July, 1776, the old Continental Congress, to the dismay of the lovers of ease, and the worshippers of property, clothed that dreadful idea with all the authority of national sanction.>>
::This confirms my point, frederick douglass love the idea that the usa can change beyond the comfort it finds itself in. He said, as my father said, that the problem with slavery was that it continued after 1776 in the usa. In my father's mind, slavery of the british colonies is acceptable as a government act for the british saw the colonies as a cow to be milked, but the colonists wanting freedom functionally, wanted an independent nation of free peoples to be born while also being a cow to be milked. They wanted their cake and eat it to::
<<Citizens, your fathers Made good that resolution. They succeeded; and today you reap the fruits of their success. The freedom gained is yours; and you, therefore, may properly celebrate this anniversary. The 4th of July is the first great fact in your nation's history-the very ring-bolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny.>>
::He is saying here a number of things, though he may have not known it. First ,free blacks failure to aid the british in reclaiming the usa changed the role of july 4th for black people in the colonies that became the usa, this is true. if free blacks would had succeeded in helping the british retain the usa, history is changed. But, in whites maintaining slavery while creating a new nation, the black people in that white nation have not yet become part of the statian nation. Notice, he used the term undeveloped destiny. He is forecasting here, saying a day may come when a human nation, not white or black or native, absorb the white nation, and make july 4th an anniversary for all ::
<< I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the RINGBOLT to the chain of your nation's destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. The principles contained in that instrument are saving principles. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in. all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost.>>
::This is another philosophical edge, between frederick douglass and I yet the key to alot of douglass's positions. HE loved the declaration of independence. Notice, not the constitution, the declaration of independence. It isn't a part of the constitution and yet for douglass its value is higher. why? the declaration of independence makes one point in a robust way. The point, is the government of the usa must serve everyone in it and if it does not it must be changed, and all governments need to be similar in nature. This idea to douglass says, black people in the usa , don't need governing elsewhere or opposition to the usa, need the government that the declaration alludes to. My problem is that the declaration is not a law. The declaration is not law for me. IT is claim. It is like making a speech on a pulpit. Does every speech on a pulpit warrant legal authority? I oppose this. Douglass lived by it. ::
<<Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. They were great men too-great enough to give fame to a great age. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. The point from which I am compelled to view them is not, certainly the most favorable; and yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration. They were statesmen, patriots and heroes, and for the good they did, and the principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory.>>
::He views the founding fathers highly in a way I do not, I think it is interesting in discussions of mount rushmore, but douglass will probably hugely support the end of rushmore to the idea of change. Douglass liked the usa's ability to change possibly, the usa changing for him was when it is best, even at the cost of lives::
<<How circumspect, exact and proportionate were all their movements! How unlike the politicians of an hour! Their statesmanship looked beyond the passing moment, and stretched away in strength into the distant future. They seized upon eternal principles, and set a glorious example in their defense. Mark them!>>
::This proves my point to the kind of black leader frederick douglass was. Frederick douglass , acted to the future, not the present. I am not saying he did not heed the present but he spoke to what he saw in the future, not what was present. Thus he didn't ambassador to haiti, he didn't advocate any sort of exodus out of the usa for blacks, not merely to africa, but to the caribbean[haiit] or mexico or what will become canada in time. And to that I think he opposed the state in rebuttal that black people will create. He opposed what spanish florida became, with jonas caballo side osceola. He opposed a black government made in anger against white oppression. He opposed haiti's anti white government, a government born from the former black enslaved, that at its heart was imperial, opposed to interraciality, integration, akin to the desires most black people in the american continent had. Ask any black person in the american continent in all the various white european languages, if they have a chance to live in a scenario like haiti over south carolina/bahia/jamaica and they will tell you haiti hands down. Frederick douglass opposed the immediate betterment of black people in his time. I oppose that idea. You can't be in a leadership position, whether you want to or not, and risk your people's safety for a possibility. Frederick douglass did that. ::
<< It is a fact, that whatever makes for the wealth or for the reputation of Americans, and can be had cheap! will be found by Americans. I shall not be charged with slandering Americans, if I say I think the Americans can side of any question may be safely left in American hands.I leave, therefore, the great deeds of your fathers to other gentlemen whose claim to have been regularly descended will be less likely to be disputed than mine! My business, if I have any here today, is with the present. The accepted time with God and his cause is the ever-living now.>>
::He ends his thoughts on moment of independence of the usa strictly and moves on to the issue that plagues most black people in the usa at that time. His summary is that people in the usa in 1852, white people, adore the independence for what they gain from it absent financial or personal sacrifice. Essentially, he is saying to whites, end black enslavement not cause it will make you fiscally rich or strengthen property in the short term but cause it will make you rise above the founding fathers that you were raised to idolize. He is asking whites to not merely idolize the founding fathers but better them::
<< You have no right to enjoy a child's share in the labor of your fathers, unless your children are to be blest by your labors. You have no right to wear out and waste the hard-earned fame of your fathers to cover your indolence. Sydney Smith tells us that men seldom eulogize the wisdom and virtues of their fathers, but to excuse some folly or wickedness of their own. This truth is not a doubtful one. >>
::This culminates another call for whites to be better than whites in 1776. Stating that whites idolize the founding fathers with no intention to better them, but to merely live off their success, and as he said in a prior paragraph, become a large settled river that will eventually die as it is essentially unchanged. ::
<<Washington could not die till he had broken the chains of his slaves. Yet his monument is built up by the price of human blood, and the traders in the bodies and souls of men, shout-" We have Washington to "ourfather."-A las! that it should be so; yet so it is.>>
::This is a great historical point. The truth is, the founding fathers were not solid when it came to the issue of slavery, they were in two camps. All showed their final thoughts through their life or before they died::
<<Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us?>>
::I only quoted this to support my own position, he is not stating the constitution, he is stating the declaration of independence is the source of independence to all in the usa. This prove my earlier point but has some modern relevance. Many constitutionalists in the usa in modernity, like clarence thomas , speak of the constitution's malleability. but frederick douglass here is asserting the constitution is not the key to change or stability, the declaration of independence is. From this line it is clear that the constitution in douglass's opinion can be eradicated but the declaration of independence is eternal and is the true basis of usa's positive uniqueness. If only more people can accept that in the usa and be willing to sacrifice. I will admit, my father agrees to douglass.::
<< The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common.-The 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 July is yours, not mine.>>
::The key in this quote is reading the whole speech. he is saying july 4th is not black people's , more over not many an individual in the usa, but he already said it can be, and the original intent of the declaration of independence is for it to be. When black people in the usa in modernity [2020 ] suggest they don't want to celebrate july 4th cause of slavery, they are missing the point. July 4th is meant to be the independence of all from douglass's view, it merely is not, but the provision of change in the declaration of independence says it can be. In opposition, the black people who say they will celebrate july 4th for their forebears, are missing the point. You don't celebrate July 4th cause of the past, you celebrate it when you have earned what was intended philosophically in the declaration of independence. ::
<<If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, towering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin! I can today take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people!>>
::A key point here is another reassertion, that he does not want history to guide actions, he sees that in the black community during his time. if black people use history, every black country has anti white laws. He wants a moral code to be used in assessing actions, not religious but religion has an example good for oration that relate to the christian majority in the usa::
<<Fellow citizens; above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, today, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them.>>
::Douglass is making a simple point. Citizenship to the usa is unbounded, the slavemaster as well as the slave is a citizen to the usa but the white nation in the usa is not equitable to the usa , at least not yet::
<<America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.>>
::He is saying the usa is not white or black but human, intended through the declaration of independence to be human, throughout its entire existence and able to be changed in whatever way to make that human community possible. ::
<<When the dogs in your streets, when the fowls of the air, when the cattle on your hills, when the fish of the sea, and the reptiles that crawl, shall be unable to distinguish the slave from a brute, then will I argue with you that the slave is a man>>
::he is saying here that the humanity of the enslaved has never been the issue, it is the treatment of fellow human beings that is the issue. I concur here, I am tired of people saying, humans are human. Everyone knows humans are human, including human beings who abuse other human beings. The husband who beats the wife knows she is human, he is not treating her as a free being ::
<<Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? that he is the rightful owner of his own body? You have already declared it. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Is that a question for Republicans? Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation, as a matter beset with great difficulty, involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard to be understood? How should I look today, in the presence of Americans, dividing, and subdividing a discourse, to show that men have a natural right to freedom? speaking of it relatively, and positively, negatively, and affirmatively. To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding.-There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, that does not know that slavery is wrong for him.>>
::What he is saying here is that ending slavery does not require an end to other issues. States rights/southern pride/white southern pride/fiscal agendas all of them do not require an end to slavery as a factor. He is saying it is a laziness and comfort that kept slavery from being ended, not other topics connection to slavery. I argue here, that he is suggesting the growing war between the states, could still occur absent slavery. Which has validity. The modern myth is that the war between the states was over slavery but it was more complicated than that. The war between the states was about two things. slavery as a fiscal allowance and the government of the usa being applicable over those that do not consent to it that do not abide by the principles in the declaration of independence. In the end of he day, the northern states position is we adhere to the line in the declaration saying all men are created equal to fiscally dominate the southern states. While the southern states are saying, we adhere to the line government by the people wishing to cede from the usa and free our culture from the machinations of the northern states. The problem is , this delicacy, this intricacy, this complexity of the war between the states is wiped away from most in the modern audience for their agenda of a multiracial usa that wasn't the agenda of most black people in the usa at the time of the war between the states. ::
<<The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.>>
::he here again, admits his desire for chaos, if to stir events, to whatever end. His faith in the principles of the declaration of independence give him resolve that its principles will outlast whatever chaos or deaths occur. Again, many black people had to die from 1852 to 2020 to get the multiphenotypical/multiracial union present in the usa to be. Was said union worth black peoples deaths? Never for me. Douglass accepts it all in the past. ::
<<There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.>>
::What douglass is saying here is that the usa is not merely a country with slavery but that the usa's enslavement is more criminal than the european imperialists murdering sprees of the european empires all around the usa throughout humanity. an interesting historic position that is rarely accepted by many today::
<< It is called (in contradistinction to the foreign slave-trade) "the internal slave-trade." It is, probably, called so, too, in order to divert from it the horror with which the foreign slave-trade is contemplated. That trade has long since been denounced by this government, as piracy. It has been denounced with burning words, from the high places of the nation, as an execrable traffic. To arrest it, to put an end to it, this nation keeps a squadron, at immense cost, on the coast of Africa.>>
::here he is pointing out a legal truth, at this time, slavery is allowed while disallowed in the usa at the same time, much like marijuana use or possession in 2020, it is legal while illegal at the same time, and the base of that is the profiteers to it and those unwilling to unsettle said profiteers ::
<<The duty to extirpate and destroy it, is admitted even by our DOCTORS OF DIVINITY. In order to put an. end to it, some of these last have consented that their colored brethren (nominally free) should leave this country, and establish themselves on the western coast of Africa!>>
::Here he defends his position against the back to africa movements. his point is that back to africa never involves the enslaved but the nominally free and the location is meant to take the "nominally free" out of sight to the usa, but he ignores the possibilities in mexico/caribbean/canada to be as if they are not options but that is cause he does not see in those options a country of humanism in the future of those plans. ::
<< Yet this is but a. glance at the American slave-trade, as it exists, at this moment, in the ruling part of the United States.>>
::As a historical note, he is saying the usa is led by the southern states, this is important cause many historians suggest the northern states were in control but this from a man living in those times, at least from the perspective of the enslaved is a fallacy::
<< they are usually driven in the darkness of night; for since the anti-slavery agitation, a certain caution is observed.>>
::well done Douglass, funny::
<<The anguish of my boyish heart was intense; and I was often consoled, when speaking to my mistress in the morning, to hear her say that the custom was very wicked; that she hated to hear the rattle of the chains, and the heart-rending cries. I was glad to find one who sympathised with me in my horror.>>
::This is so vital to comprehending frederick douglass. He wasn't like the average black person, who had no positive relationship to any white person. I think it is so massive so comprehend, his views toward what was best for the black community, not taking heed to the majority black opinion of his time, stem from a life where he had the very rare positive relationship to a white person that proved to him that the declaration of independence wasn't the modern bullshit, but wisdom, purpose. Douglass knew most blacks did not feel this way, did not see it this way, but he did, and he felt if blacks stayed in the usa, the declaration of independence ideas, will come to the forefront, but it will only happen if blacks stay as citizen. So even though blacks did not have any loyalty to the usa, he used his voice in a way, independent of the black community en large, in opposition to it in 1852, who wanted every option involving leaving the usa altogether to killing all whites as a dream , a personal declaration that most blacks shared seamlessly. But a declaration he opposed, I do not. I would not had.::
<<The Fugitive Slave Law makes MERCY TO THEM, A CRIME; and bribes the judge who tries them. An American JUDGE GETS TEN DOLLARS FOR EVERY VICTIM HE CONSIGNS to slavery, and five, when he fails to do so. >>
::The fugitive slave law was about making money. Douglass saw this law as a threat to the ability of the usa to change, moreover, as a threat to the parts of the declaration itself. To douglass, the consent of the governed, is seconded to all men are created equal. The usa during this time was saying the consent of some of the governed is able to refute all men are due inalienable rights. This is complicated actually. On moral grounds, which is where douglass is speaking from it is not. but on historical grounds, it is. Legally nothing was wrong with a fugitive slave act. And as a black woman once said, black people are free even if they are in an unfree place. Meaning, slavery does not undo the inalienable rights, a complicated legal position, but that is why douglass strayed away from that. He focused on morals, codes of conduct. Law or history can become muddy. ::
<<A John Knox would be seen at every church door, and heard from every pulpit, and Fillmore would have no more quarter than was shown by Knox, to the beautiful, but treacherous Queen Mary of Scotland.-The fact that the church of our country, (with fractional exceptions,) does not esteem "the Fugitive Slave Law" as a declaration of war against religious liberty, implies that that church regards religion simply as a form of worship, an empty ceremony, and not a vital principle, requiring active benevolence, justice, love and good will towards man.>>
::Again he uses moral code as a basis to his position , his request for change, his call for all to gather and work to change. He is not using history or law. Law is not about right or wrong, it is about interpretation. History as precedence offers little comfort to those with a code in the mind::
<<But the church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of the slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors. It has made itself the bulwark of American slavery, and the shield of American slave-hunters. Many of its most eloquent Divines, who stand as the very lights of the church, have shamelessly given the sanction of religion, and the bible, to the whole slave system. - They have taught that man may, properly, be a slave; that the relation of master and slave is ordained of God; that to send back an escaped bondman to his master is clearly the duty of all the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ; and this horrible blasphemy is palmed off upon the world for christianity. For my part, I would say, welcome infidelity! welcome atheism! welcome anything! in preference to the gospel, as preached by those Divines!>>
:: support to my point about moral code and it is interesting Douglass was an infidel to his wife, if a christian marriage is defined by the blockading of either partner from intimacy to one outside their two, I wonder if douglass was areligious, called atheist commonly. To be without a god is not to be without a religion. And to not have a god or religion does not deny faith. All humans but the truly inhuman have no faith in something ::
<<Albert Barnes but uttered what the common sense of every man at all observant of the actual state of the case will receive as truth, when he declared that "There is no power out of the church that could sustain slavery an hour, if it were not sustained in it.">>
::This proves that Douglass clearly saw state as applicable to church, he did not say the state can deny church's existence , but church can be held liable, ala what the usa did later to the mormons concerning black people, but what the usa government is unwilling to do to the catholic church concerning the molestations to children::
<<You hurl your anathemas at the crowned headed tyrants of Russia and Austria, and pride yourselves on your Democratic institutions, while you yourselves consent to be the mere tools and body-guards of the tyrants of Virginia and Carolina. You invite to your shores fugitives of oppression from abroad, honor them with banquets, greet them with ovations, cheer them, toast them, salute them, protect them, and pour out your money to them like water; but the fugitives from your own land, you advertise, hunt, arrest, shoot and kill. You glory in your refinement, and your universal education; yet you maintain a system as barbarous and dreadful, as ever stained the character of a nation-a system begun in avarice, supported in pride, and perpetuated in cruelty. >>
::I have said it before, whites in the usa could have solved a lot of problems by merely being honests from day one, chutting the declaration, chutting the variance between spoken actions/written actions or non spoken or written actions. I say today, the usa can call itself an empire,but as the time frederick douglass spoke, the usa historically has never been able to be honest about its condition. Part of that is fiscal benefit, the other is pseudo goodness, meaning false goodness. If you can cite a piece of paper or some speech or advertised morality, that is enough to cover the truth::
<<But it is answered in reply to all this, that precisely what I have now denounced is, in fact, guaranteed and sanctioned by the Constitution of the United States; that, the right to hold, and to hunt slaves is a part of that Constitution framed by the illustrious Fathers of this Republic. Then, I dare to affirm, notwithstanding all I have said before, your fathers stooped, basely stooped. "To palter with us in a double sense : And keep the word of promise to the ear, But break it to the heart." And instead of being the honest men I have before declared them to be, they were the veriest imposters that ever practised on mankind. This is the inevitable conclusion, and from it there is no escape; but I differ from those who charge this baseness on the framers of the Constitution of the United States. It is a slander upon their memory, at least, so I believe. There is not time now to argue the constitutional question at length; nor have I the ability to discuss it as it ought to be discussed. The subject has been handled with masterly power by Lysander Spooner, Esq., by William Goodell, by Samuel E. Sewall, Esq., and last, though not least, by Gerritt Smith, Esq. These gentlemen have, as I think, fully and clearly vindicated the Constitution from any design to support slavery for an hour.>>
::Douglass barely mentions the constitution in this speech before the final segment, which concerns it, this proves my point. He does suggest that some in his day proved the constitution does not validate slavery, but he admits it is not easy to prove that, it is not straight forward and someone must be a student of the law to do so, which proves at the least, that the idea that slavery is allowed in the constitution is not absent some level of validity. The problem is, everyone knows that the people who owned enslaved peoples only accepted independence with asurity that slavery will continue. This is a simple historical fact. The problem is, the legal system of the usa bred from the declaration of independence and eventual into the constitution does not publicly accept the unwritten provision. Frederick Douglass tells people here to forego that provision and accept any challenges or battles against such an act. The historical lesson in the usa from 1776 to 2020 is that if a community joins a union with a clear desire but does not demand that desire is written in the legal documentation of the union as lawful, then that community risks its destruction. ::
https://rbscp.lib.rochester.edu/2945