Douglass spent almost three weeks writing the speech. His motivation was quite simple, said Raymond Winbush, director of the Institute for Urban Research at Morgan State University.
“What inspired him was the hypocrisy of this country,” Winbush said. “He was angry when he wrote it.”
Douglass saw two Americas: one with a massive system of roughly 3 million slaves and another where Americans beat drums, sang hymns, preached sermons and waved banners with “joyous enthusiasm” to celebrate their freedom.
Two years before Douglass’ famed speech, the U.S. government passed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which required runaway slaves to be returned to their owners.
For decades, slaves fled the South through the Underground Railroad. Until the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, Northern states made it illegal for law enforcement officials to apprehend runaways.
The federal law mandated that U.S. marshals, federal officials and everyday citizens help apprehend suspected runaways, even those found in free states. Those who refused to capture a runaway slave or helped them could be fined or jailed.
Douglass believed this new law nationalized slavery because everyone in the USA was legally obliged to return escaped enslaved people to their so-called owners, said Robert Levine, University of Maryland professor and author of several books about Douglass. “So he’s angry about that and sees that whole act as an act of violence against Black people,” Levine said.