were wanting. There was the
man, the incomparable Douglass; the wrongs of slavery was his subject;
and the occasion was the 4th of July.

"FELLOW-CITIZENS:--Pardon me, and allow me to ask, why am I
called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I
represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great
principles of political freedom and of natural justice embodied
in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? and am I,
therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the
national altar, and to confess the benefits, and express devout
gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to
us?

"Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative
answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! Then
would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. For
who is there so cold, that a nation's sympathy could not warm
him? Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that
would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Who so
stolid and selfish, that would not give his voice to swell the
hallelujahs of a nation's jubilee, when the chains of servitude
had been torn from his limbs? I am not that man. In a case like
that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the 'lame man leap as
an hart.'

"But, such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad
sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the
pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only
reveals the immeasurable distance between us. 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 of July is _yours_, not
_mine_. _You_ may rejoice, _I_ must mourn. To drag a man in
fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call
upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and
sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking
me to speak to-day? 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 th