In 1776, the initial, July 1 vote on whether to declare independence won support from only nine of the original 13 colonies: the Pennsylvania and South Carolina delegations voted no on the question, the New York delegation abstained, and Delaware’s two representatives were split. By July 4, however, delegates impressed by the geopolitical advantages of showing greater unity had secured it, with South Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Delaware all voting in favor.

Even though the new nation failed to live up to its ideals, Frederick Douglass would call the Declaration of Independence “the ring-bolt to the chain of your nation’s destiny” in his 1852 speech, “What to a Slave Is the Fourth of July?” The oration began with incisive praise for the Founders’ best qualities:

The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. They were great men too — great enough to give fame to a great age. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. The point from which I am compelled to view them is not, certainly, the most favorable; and yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration. They were statesmen, patriots and heroes, and for the good they did, and the principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory. They loved their country better than their own private interests; and, though this is not the highest form of human excellence, all will concede that it is a rare virtue, and that when it is exhibited, it ought to command respect. He who will, intelligently, lay down his life for his country, is a man whom it is not in human nature to despise. 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. They were peace men; but they preferred revolution to peaceful submission to bondage. They were quiet men; but they did not shrink from agitating against oppression. They showed forbearance; but that they knew its limits. They believed in order; but not in the order of tyranny. With them, nothing was “settled” that was not right. With them, justice, liberty and humanity were “final;” not slavery and oppression. You may well cherish the memory of such men. They were great in their day and generation.

That prelude, rooted in the common ground of celebrating praiseworthy deeds and ideals, made the stinging indictment that followed all the more powerful. “Fellow-citizens,” Douglass said, “above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them.”

And he went much further:

At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. 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.

America got the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake; and emancipation, along with an amended Constitution, completed the American Revolution–– much more protest and politics, but no more war, would be required to perfect the union.