"What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in 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 -- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would
disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.
- Frederick Douglass, July 5, 1852
What understanding did Frederick Douglass wish to convey in his speech, What to a Slave is the Fourth of July?
A. The degree to which slaves were denied the civil rights they were granted in the U.S. Constitution.
B. The contrast between the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the realities of slavery.
C. The extent to which slavery and citizenship share common characteristics.
D. The connection between the right to vote and the realization of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."