Douglass did not wish to celebrate The 4th of July because it was celebrating freedom. There were many blacks still enslaved and he dispised how United States celebrated freedom when millions of blacks were still enslaved. Douglass said “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.” He is talking about the black slaves who are still trapped with no freedom
