By Michael A. Hancock | Commentary, Substack
Rediscovering Frederick Douglass’s Real Message
Every year around this time, we dust off the words of Frederick Douglass’s famous 1852 speech, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”, and parade them around like fireworks—bright, dramatic, and quickly forgotten. In recent years, Douglass has been appropriated into the modern progressive narrative, a voice supposedly echoing today’s claims that America was founded as a white supremacist project, rooted not in liberty but in racial hierarchy. That’s the popular takeaway.
But that’s not Douglass’s message. Not even close.
Douglass’s words, when read in full, don’t damn the Constitution or the founding ideals—they uphold them. He doesn’t condemn the Declaration of Independence as a fraud; he reveres it. His speech is not a rejection of America’s promise but a searing indictment of its hypocrisy in failing to live up to that promise. The distinction is everything. And yet, it is ignored.
Not a Condemnation of the Founding, But a Call to Fulfill It
Douglass, a former slave turned abolitionist statesman, begins his oration not by railing against the American experiment but by extolling it:
“Fellow-citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions…”
Yes, he grieves, but not because the Fourth is meaningless. He grieves because its meaning hasn’t yet reached all. In fact, Douglass calls the Founders “brave men” whose cause was “noble.” He writes:
“Your fathers staked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor on the cause of their country. In their admiration of liberty, they lost sight of all other interests.”
This doesn’t read like a man condemning the founding principles—it reads like a man pleading for their universal application. He understood the difference between America’s principles and America’s practice.
Today, however, activists and scholars—steeped in critical race theory and the revisionist 1619 Project—tell us that the Declaration was a smokescreen, the Constitution a covenant of white supremacy. They argue that America’s founding ideals were always meant to exclude, and that slavery wasn’t a tragic contradiction to liberty, but its very foundation.
That is the great historical lie.
Douglass vs. the 1619 Project
Nikole Hannah-Jones, architect of the 1619 Project, claims “anti-Black racism runs in the very DNA of this country.” In her version of history, America didn’t begin in 1776 with a declaration of liberty—it started in 1619 with a transaction of human flesh. The implication is clear: there was no fall from grace, no hypocrisy, no failed ideals—because there were no noble ideals to begin with.
Douglass said otherwise.
In 1860, he wrote:
“The Constitution is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT.”
This wasn’t naive optimism. It was careful constitutional reasoning. Unlike William Lloyd Garrison, who called the Constitution “a covenant with death,” Douglass believed that the plain text of the Constitution provided no legitimate basis for slavery. He argued that it could be a weapon against it.
He wasn’t wrong. The very preamble—“We the People”—contained no racial qualifier. And while the Declaration’s assertion that “all men are created equal” was not fully practiced, it created a moral benchmark by which future generations could measure injustice. That’s why Lincoln could wield it. That’s why Martin Luther King Jr. could invoke it. That’s why Douglass, even while excoriating his nation’s hypocrisy, clung to its founding creed.
The American Paradox—and Its Power
To pretend the Founders were perfect is foolish. But to say their flaws invalidate their principles is even more foolish. America was born with a contradiction: the coexistence of liberty and slavery. But that contradiction is not proof that the ideals were a lie—it’s proof they were revolutionary. No society had ever declared universal rights in such terms. It just took a civil war, and then another century of struggle, to begin to realize them.
Douglass understood this. That’s why, after the Civil War, he proudly declared himself “a black American.” Not a victim of the American project, but a stakeholder in it.
“I do not despair of this country. There are forces in operation which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery.”
Can you imagine Douglass today being celebrated on campuses where students insist the U.S. flag represents only oppression? Or in social justice circles that claim patriotism is synonymous with white nationalism?
Ironically, many who wave his words on July 4th treat his true beliefs like contraband.
The Meaning of the Fourth, Then and Now
The Fourth of July isn’t just a day of burgers and fireworks. It’s a date stamped on a document that declared something the world had never seen before: that rights come from nature and nature’s God, not from kings, not from majorities, and certainly not from the state.
Yes, Douglass held a mirror to America’s face in 1852. But what he wanted to reflect was not its ruin, but its redemption. He dared the nation to live up to its own words.
We should do the same.
So, when we remember Douglass this Fourth of July, let’s do more than quote him out of context. Let’s honor the full scope of his vision: that America was not a white supremacist fortress, but a republic in process—one whose founding ideals were radical enough to challenge its own sins.
Douglass didn’t call us to tear down the house. He called us to finish building it.
That’s a call worth answering.
Hancock also publishes on Substack. You can check out more of his work here.
Michael A. Hancock is a retired high-tech executive, visionary, musician, and composer, exploring diverse interests—from religion and arts to politics and philosophy—offering thoughtful insights on the intersections of culture, innovation, and society.
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