Frederick Douglass starts off his speech by noting how they asked him to prepare a speech commemorating the Declaration of Independence. Then he is quick to note the irony in the fact that these white men are free and celebrating their Independence, but his people are still enslaved, so e cannot celebrate with these white men who are free. America, supposedly land of the free, is not free for all. African Americans are as able as white, so therefore, they should have the same equality. It is wrong to work these African American people without wages, to hit them and lash them, to sell them like property, and starve them. The Fourth of July to an enslaved person, is a mockery at them. This nation has done worse atrocities to their slaves than their European counter-parts.
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