On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass delivered what came to be known as the “Fourth of July” Speech to the Ladies’ Antislavery Society in Rochester, New York. Refusing to speak the day before, Douglass began by admonishing the crowd with a series of questions. He asked, “Why am I called to speak here today? What have I or those I represent to do with your national independence?” His following questions provided answers. He went on to ask, “Are the great principles of political freedom and natural justices, embodied in the 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?” He went on to point out, “This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.”

Douglass intended to use his speech to issue a challenge to the American people to make good on the promises of the Declaration of Independence of which the country had celebrated the day before and in which he refused to participate as long as his brothers and sisters remained enslaved in the American South. He asked:

“What to the American slave is your Fourth of July? I answer, a day that reveals to him more than all other days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. 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’s thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation of the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of these United States at this very hour.”

Readers should ask questions about national leaders and their questioning of accepted or perceived values of the country both in the past and present. Take note of the criticisms of presidential candidates and their supporters questioning present-day national values and positions leading many to challenge their patriotism and loyalty. Is this an American tradition or an anomaly? And is the questioning of American policies, traditions, and values a sign of patriotism and loyalty?

Bradley Skelcher (Ph.D., Southern Illinois University at Carbondale) is a professor of history and is presently Associate Provost and Dean of the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at Delaware State University. He recently contributed a chapter titled “Promises of Brown: Desegregating Education in Delaware, 1950-1968” in With All Deliberate Speed: Implementing Brown v. Board of Education, edited by Brian J. Daugherity and Charles C. Bolton and published by University of Arkansas Press in 2008.