O! had I the ability, and could I reach the nation’s ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.
Frederick Douglass, delivered this speech, sometimes called, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” or the Fifth of July speech, on July 5, 1852, in Rochester, New York. The speech, delivered to a local antislavery women’s group, began with a sympathetic account of the American Revolution and its great promise for freedom but then pivoted to a second half which detailed the gross hypocrisy of American enslavement on the legacy of that freedom struggle. Many historians consider this effort to be Douglass’s finest oration, and arguably one of the most powerful American political speeches ever written.
Stephen Miller would have him arrested for that speech. That kind of thing (much stupider, of course) is only allowed to be said by white supremacists.