The Hypocrisy of American Slavery

Welcome to Celebrate Poe - this is episode 272  where I look at Frederick Douglass, and yes, a little about Edgar Allan Poe. Now while Poe and Douglass came from vastly different backgrounds with fascinating writing styles, they both share a mastery of suspense in their respective works. In this episode, I want to concentrate on Douglass’s ideas and writing style in addition to some comments about Poe, ending with Douglass’s masterful “The Hypocrisy of American Slavery.”

Thank you for experiencing Celebrate Poe.

Transcript

Welcome to Celebrate Poe - this is episode 272  where I look at Frederick Douglass, and yes, a little about Edgar Allan Poe. Now while Poe and Douglass came from vastly different backgrounds with fascinating writing styles, they both share a mastery of suspense in their respective works.
In this episode, I want to concentrate on Douglass’s ideas and writing style in addition to some comments about Poe, ending with Douglass’s masterful “The Hypocrisy of American Slavery.”

But before we go any further, I want to take an aside here and thank the people who have literally been lifesavers for me at the Anderson Cancer Center in Indianapolis.  You may remember from a few weeks ago, I devoted an entire episode to the importance of males knowing your PSA levels - and if any of this is new to you, check out episode 265 for the episode Celebrate Poe’s Most Important Episode Yet.  Now I had mentioned that my PSA level was a ridiculously high 19 - but after a series brachytherapy and a series of radiation treatments, my PSA level is now 1.2.  And I would like to thank the many doctors and medical staff who have been giving me treatments.

But getting back to Edgar Poe and Frederick Douglas - On one hand, you
have Edgar Allan Poe creating psychological suspense by tapping into the deepest fears and anxieties of the human psyche. His stories, often featuring dark and mysterious settings, explored themes of death, madness, and the supernatural. 

Now Frederick Douglass, a formerly enslaved abolitionist and author, used suspense in his writings to highlight the injustices of slavery and advocate for social change. His works, such as his "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass", kept readers on the edge of their seats as he recounted his experiences under slavery and his daring escape to freedom. 

Poe would often use dark, isolated settings in his works, such as crumbling mansions or stormy landscapes, to create a sense of unease and claustrophobia.  And his vivid and often grotesque imagery appealed to the reader's sense of fear and disgust. Poe's stories often featured unpredictable twists and turns, keeping the reader guessing until the very end, and his characters were often tormented by inner demons - often facing impossible choices, Of course, such impossible choices added to the overall suspense.
Douglass would often slow down the pace of his narrative at key moments, building tension and anticipation. He would end chapters at critical junctures, leaving the reader eager to know what happened next.
Douglass used vivid descriptions of his experiences to evoke empathy and outrage in his readers.  And he often concluded his narratives with a call to action, urging readers to join the fight against slavery.

In conclusion, while Poe and Douglass employed suspense in vastly different ways, they both used it to achieve powerful effects. Poe's suspense explored the dark corners of the human psyche, while Douglass' suspense exposed the evils of slavery and inspired readers to take a stand for justice.

But there is no direct evidence that Edgar Allan Poe ever mentioned Frederick Douglass in his writings or letters - or that Douglass ever wrote about Poe.  While they were contemporaries who lived in the same region of the United States for a time, their paths never seem to have crossed in any documented way.

Some scholars believe they even lived within a few blocks of each other at one point in the Baltimore area, however, there's no record of them interacting.

For this episode, I am going to read from some works of Frederick Douglass - wish I could afford to have someone with the voice of the late, great James Earl Jones read the works in his commanding voice, but I am just going to give the words a try in my natural voice - for me to try and imitate an African-American speaker would come across as insulting and extremely inappropriate.   By the way, when I use the terms colored boy or colored school, I am using the terms as originally written, and not as insults.

Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was born into slavery on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay in Talbot County, Maryland. His birthplace was likely his grandmother's cabin. In successive autobiographies - and Douglas wrote 3 autobiographies - he gave more precise estimates of when he was born, his final estimate being 1817. Various historians have determined that Douglass was born in February of 1818.  Though the exact date of his birth is unknown, he chose to celebrate February 14 as his birthday, remembering that his mother called him her "Little Valentine."

Douglass's mother, enslaved, was of African descent and his father, who may have been her master, was apparently of European descent. In his Narrative (published in 1845 - the same year that Poe published The Raven), Douglass wrote: "My father was a white man.” According to David W. Blight's excellent 2018 biography of Douglass, "For the rest of his life he searched in vain for the name of his true father."  Douglass's genetic heritage likely also included Native American. Douglass said his mother Harriet Bailey gave him his name Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey and, after he escaped to the North in September 1838, he took the surname Douglass, having already dropped his two middle names.

He later wrote of his earliest times with his mother:

The opinion was also whispered that my master was my father; but of the correctness of this opinion, I know nothing. ... My mother and I were separated when I was but an infant. ... It is a common custom, in the part of Maryland from which I ran away, to part children from their mothers at a very early age. ... I do not recollect of ever seeing my mother by the light of day. She was with me in the night. She would lie down with me, and get me to sleep, but long before I waked she was gone.

After separation from his mother during infancy, young Frederick lived with his maternal grandmother Betsy Bailey, who was also enslaved, and his maternal grandfather Isaac, who was free. Betsy would live until 1849. Frederick's mother remained on the plantation about 12 miles away, visiting Frederick only a few times before her death when he was 7 years old.

Returning much later, about 1883, to purchase land in Talbot County that was meaningful to him, he was invited to address "a colored school":

I once knew a little colored boy whose mother and father died when he was six years old. He was a slave and had no one to care for him. He slept on a dirt floor in a hovel, and in cold weather would crawl into a meal bag head foremost and leave his feet in the ashes to keep them warm. Often he would roast an ear of corn and eat it to satisfy his hunger, and many times has he crawled under the barn or stable and secured eggs, which he would roast in the fire and eat.

That boy did not wear pants like you do, but a tow linen shirt. Schools were unknown to him, and he learned to spell from an old Webster's spelling-book and to read and write from posters on cellar and barn doors, while boys and men would help him. He would then preach and speak, and soon became well known. He became Presidential Elector, United States Marshal, United States Recorder, United States diplomat, and accumulated some wealth. He wore broadcloth and didn't have to divide crumbs with the dogs under the table. That boy was Frederick Douglass.

At the age of 6, Douglass was separated from his grandparents and moved to the Wye House plantation, where an Aaron Anthony worked as overseer. After Anthony died in 1826, Douglass was given to Lucretia Auld, wife of Thomas Auld, who sent him to serve Thomas' brother Hugh Auld and his wife Sophia Auld in Baltimore. From the day he arrived, Sophia saw to it that Douglass was properly fed and clothed, and that he slept in a bed with sheets and a blanket. Douglass described her as a kind and tender-hearted woman, who treated him "as she supposed one human being ought to treat another." Douglass felt that he was lucky to be in the city, where he said enslaved people were almost freemen, compared to those on plantations.

When Douglass was about 12, Sophia Auld began teaching him the alphabet. Hugh Auld disapproved of the tutoring, feeling that literacy would encourage enslaved people to desire freedom. Douglass later referred to this as the "first decidedly antislavery lecture" he had ever heard. "'Very well, thought I,'" wrote Douglass. "'Knowledge unfits a child to be a slave.' I instinctively assented to the proposition, and from that moment I understood the direct pathway from slavery to freedom.” - here he came to the conclusion that education could break the bonds of slavery.

Under her husband's influence, Sophia came to believe that education and slavery were incompatible and one day snatched a newspaper away from Douglass. She stopped teaching him altogether and hid all potential reading materials, including her Bible, from him. In his autobiography, Douglass related how he learned to read from white children in the neighborhood and by observing the writings of the men with whom he worked.

While living in Baltimore, Douglass internalized his feelings about wanting to read and write, while being very careful about approaching the idea of freedom that he ached for - feelings that he wrote about in My Bondage and My Freedom about an occurrence on a Baltimore wharf -

I went, one day, to the wharf; and seeing two Irishmen unloading a large cargo, II went on board, unasked, and helped them. When we had finished the work, one of the men came to me, aside, and asked me a number of questions, and among them, if I were a slave. I told him “I was a slave, and a slave for life.” The good Irishman gave his shoulders a shrug, and seemed deeply affected by the statement. He said, “it was a pity so fine a little fellow as myself should be a slave for life.” They both had much to say about the matter, and expressed the deepest sympathy with me, and the most decided hatred of slavery. They went so far as to tell me that I ought
to run away, and go to the north; that I should find friends there, and
that I would be as free as anybody. I, however, pretended not to be
interested in what they said, for I feared they might be treacherous.
White men have been known to encourage slaves to escape, and then—to
get the reward—they have kidnapped them, and returned them to their
masters. And while I mainly inclined to the notion that these men were
honest and meant me no ill, I feared it might be otherwise. I
nevertheless remembered their words and their advice, and looked
forward to an escape to the north, as a possible means of gaining the
liberty for which my heart panted.

Douglass continued, secretly, to teach himself to read and write. He later often said, "knowledge is the pathway from slavery to freedom." As Douglass began to read newspapers, pamphlets, political materials, and books of every description, this new realm of thought led him to question and condemn the institution of slavery. In later years, Douglass credited The Columbian Orator, an anthology that he discovered at about age 12, with clarifying and defining his views on freedom and human rights. First published in 1797, the book is a classroom reader, containing essays, speeches, and dialogues, to assist students in learning reading and grammar. He later learned that his mother had also been literate, about which he would later declare:

I am quite willing, and even happy, to attribute any love of letters I possess, and for which I have got—despite of prejudices—only too much credit, not to my admitted Anglo-Saxon paternity, but to the native genius of my stable, unprotected, and uncultivated mother—a woman, who belonged to a race whose mental endowments it is, at present, fashionable to hold in disparagement and contempt.

In 1833, Thomas Auld took Douglass back from Hugh (as a means of punishing Hugh," Douglass later wrote). Thomas sent Douglass to work for Edward Covey, a poor farmer who had a reputation as a "slave-breaker". He whipped Douglass so frequently that his wounds had little time to heal. Douglass later said the frequent whippings broke his body, soul, and spirit.The 16-year-old Douglass finally rebelled against the beatings, however, and fought back. After Douglass won a physical confrontation, Covey never tried to beat him again.

In My Bondage and My Freedon, Douglas was to later write:

If at any one time of my life, more than another, I was made to drink
the bitterest dregs of slavery, that time was during the first six
months of my stay with Mr. Covey. We were worked all weathers. It was
never too hot or too cold; it could never rain, blow, snow, or hail too
hard for us to work in the field. Work, work, work, was scarcely more
the order of the day than the night. The longest days were too short
for him, and the shortest nights were too long for him. I was somewhat
unmanageable when I first went there; but a few months of his
discipline tamed me. Mr. Covey succeeded in breaking me. I was broken
in body, soul and spirit. My natural elasticity was crushed; my
intellect languished; the disposition to read departed; the cheerful
spark that lingered about my eye died; the dark night of slavery closed
in upon me; and behold a man transformed into a brute!

Sunday was my only leisure time. I spent this in a sort of beast-like
stupor, between sleep and wake, under some large tree. At times, I
would rise up, a flash of energetic freedom would dart through my soul,
accompanied with a faint beam of hope, flickered for a moment, and then
vanished. I sank down again, mourning over my wretched condition. I was
sometimes prompted to take my life, and that of Covey, but was
prevented by a combination of hope and fear. My sufferings on this
plantation seem now like a dream rather than a stern reality.

Still, Douglass came to see his physical fight with Covey as life-transforming, and introduced the story in his autobiography as such: "You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man.”

Douglas was more determined to escape from his masters than ever.  He later wrote in My Bondage and My Freedom:

 I cannot describe the tempest and tumult of my brain, The
reader will please to bear in mind, that, in a slave state, an
unsuccessful runaway is not only subjected to cruel torture, and sold
away to the far south, but he is frequently execrated by the other
slaves. He is charged with making the condition of the other slaves
intolerable, by laying them all under the suspicion of their
masters—subjecting them to greater vigilance, and imposing greater
limitations on their privileges. I dreaded murmurs from this quarter.
It is difficult, too, for a slave master to believe that slaves escaping
have not been aided in their flight by some one of their fellow slaves.
When, therefore, a slave is missing, every slave on the place is
closely examined as to his knowledge of the undertaking; and they are
sometimes even tortured, to make them disclose when they are suspected
of knowing of such escape.

Now fast forward to 1852.  Frederick Douglas Frederick Douglass. “The Hypocrisy Of American Slavery.” In 1852, Douglass was invited to speak at a public Fourth of July celebration in Rochester, N.Y. Instead of talking about the celebration with a speech called “The Hypocrisy of American Slavery.” Douglass addressed the issue that was dividing the nation. “I will, in the name of humanity, which is outraged, in the name of liberty, which is fettered, in the name of the Constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery,” he said.

In the mid-19th century, the United States was saturated in a political climate that centered around the moral social issue of slavery. While many of the southern states wanted to continue their established economic system that was based on slavery, many of the northern states were in favor of abolishing slavery. A key figure who had established himself as part of the abolitionist movement was escaped slave-turned-activist Frederick Douglass. As part of the Independence Day celebrations on July 4, 1852, Rochester, New York invited Douglass to deliver a public address to approximately 600 people. What he said that day shocked the sensibilities of thousands and contributed to the abolitionist movement leading up to the American Civil War.

Although transcripts of Douglass’ actual wording that day vary, most accounts agree on the major sections of Douglass’ rhetoric. Shifting the focus from the celebrations and praise the crowd expected because of the holiday, Douglass reviewed and condemned the social and moral climate of America that contributed to slavery. After asking the crowd if they were mocking him by asking him to speak, he spat intense, emotional, pointed remarks directed toward anyone who could dare to celebrate the liberty of a country that continued to enslave over four million people.

Later recognized as one of the greatest contributors to literature in the 19th century, Douglass was respected during his time for his eloquence and impressive oratory abilities. The speech he delivered came to be known as “The Hypocrisy of American Slavery.” It received outrageous applause and a standing ovation when delivered, and Douglass was immediately commissioned to publish as many as 700 pamphlet copies of the speech. The Frederick Douglass Paper was the only local periodical to report on the speech, but word of it spread through those who had heard it delivered.
 
“Fellow citizens, pardon me, and allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here today? 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 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 today? 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 (Babylon) whose crimes, towering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin.
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 jubilant shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, “may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!”
To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs and to chime in with the popular theme would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world.
My subject, then, fellow citizens, is “American Slavery.” I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slave’s point of view. Standing here, identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this Fourth of July.
Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity, which is outraged, in the name of liberty, which is fettered, in the name of the Constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery — the great sin and shame of America! “I will not equivocate – I will not excuse.” I will use the severest language I can command, and yet not one word shall escape me that any man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a slave-holder, shall not confess to be right and just.

But I fancy I hear some of my audience say it is just in this circumstance that you and your brother Abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind. Would you argue more and denounce less, would you persuade more and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed. But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? That point is conceded already. Nobody doubts it. The slave-holders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. There are seventy-two crimes in the State of Virginia, which, if committed by a black man (no matter how ignorant he be), subject him to the punishment of death; while only two of these same crimes will subject a white man to like punishment.
What is this but the acknowledgment that the slave is a moral, intellectual, and responsible being? The manhood of the slave is conceded. It is admitted in the fact that Southern statute books are covered with enactments, forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, the teaching of the slave to read and write. When you can point to any such laws in reference to the beasts of the field, then I may consent to argue the manhood of the slave. 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 I will argue with you that the slave is a man!
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 understand? 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 who does not know that slavery is wrong for him.
What! Am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood and stained with pollution is wrong? No – I will not. I have better employment for my time and strength than such arguments would imply.

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 shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mock; 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 – a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. Go search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.”

Join Celebrate Poe for episode where I finally delve into Lincoln’s first inaugural address.   I had planned to use that subject for this podcast, but decided to put if off until the words by Frederick Douglas that you have just heard.

And whether it be early, absentee, mail-in, in-person, or any other form, don’t forget to vote for the future of the United States.