Read the excerpt from Frederick Douglass's July 4, 1852, speech on the hypocrisy of American slavery. Douglass was an abolitionist and a formerly enslaved person.Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.