Fellow citizens, pardon me, 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 [sincere] gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us? 2 [S]uch is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the 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 [given] by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes [marks from whipping] and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. 3 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 [unbearable] by the jubilee shouts that reach them. 4 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, there, identified with the American bondman [slave], 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 4th of July! What is the primary reason that Douglass gives for not celebrating the Fourth of July? because Americans are not interested in freedom because Americans take their freedom for granted because Americans do not appreciate the government because too many Americans are disrespectful to our country because so many Americans do not have the freedom plz help due tom