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...It carries your minds back to the day, and to the act of your great deliverance; and to the signs, and to the wonders, associated with that act that day.
To side with the right, against the wrong, with the weak against the strong, and with the oppressed against the oppressor! here lies the merit, and the one which, of all others, seems unfashionable in our day...The cause of liberty may be stabbed by the men who glory in the deeds of your fathers.
Oops. Words became easy by 1852, as they were twisted by those seeking to be oppressors themselves...to his hearers, this line had to have sounded like thunder in the distance, putting them on notice that a storm was brewing in Douglass' words.
Having taken his time, however, Douglass brought the storm.
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