meaning of what to the slave is the fourth of july

Advisor: James Engell, Gurney Professor of English and Professor of Comparative Literature, Harvard University, National Humanities Middle Young man.
Copyright National Humanities Center, 2013

What arguments and rhetorical strategies did Frederick Douglass utilize to persuade a northern, white audience to oppose slavery and favor abolition?

Understanding

In the 1850s abolitionism was not a widely embraced motility in the The states. It was considered radical, extreme, and dangerous. In "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" Frederick Douglass sought not but to convince people of the wrongfulness of slavery but besides to make abolition more adequate to Northern whites.

Frederick Douglass, ca 1855, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Text

Frederick Douglass, "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" An Address Delivered in Rochester, New York, on July 5, 1852.

Text Complexity

Grades 11-CCR complexity band.
For more information on text complexity see these resource from achievethecore.org.

Text Type

Speech, historical, informational.

Click here for standards and skills for this lesson.

Ten

Common Core State Standards

• ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.5 (Clarify in detail how a complex primary source is structured…)

Advanced Placement US History

• Key Concept v.2 (I-B) (Abolitionists…mounted a highly visible campaign against slavery…)

Advanced Placement Language and Composition

• Developing…the ability to evaluate…primary…sources
• Reading nonfiction…to give students opportunities to place and explicate an author's use of rhetorical strategies and techniques

Teacher's Note

In add-on to making historical points nearly nineteenth-century attitudes toward slavery, race, and abolition, you can use this speech to teach formal rhetoric. Nosotros take divided the address into 4 sections co-ordinate to the function of each one. This partition follows the archetype structure of argumentative writing:

1. paragraphs 1–3: introduction (exordium)
2. paragraphs 4–29: narrative or statement of fact (narratio)
3. paragraphs 30–seventy: arguments and counter-arguments (confirmatio and refutatio)
4. paragraph 71: conclusion (peroratio)

We have included notes that explain the function of each section equally well as questions that invite discussion of the ways in which Douglass deploys rhetoric to brand his instance.

This lesson features five interactive activities, which can be accessed by clicking on this icon . The outset explores the subtle way in which Douglass compares the patriots of 1776 with the abolitionists of 1852. The second challenges students to determine how Douglass supports his thesis. The third focuses on his use of syllogistic reasoning, while the quaternary examines how he makes his example through emotion and the fifth through analogy.

We recommend assigning the entire text . For close reading we have analyzed xviii of the speech's seventy-ane paragraphs through fine-grained questions, well-nigh of them text-dependent, that will enable students to explore rhetorical strategies and meaning themes. The version below, designed for teachers, provides responses to those questions in the "Text Analysis" section. The classroom version , a printable worksheet for utilise with students, omits those responses and this "Teaching the Text" note. Terms that appear in blue are defined on hover and in a printable glossary on the last page of the classroom version. The student worksheet also includes links to the activities, indicated by this icon .

This is a long lesson. We recommend dividing students into groups and assigning each grouping a set of paragraphs to clarify.

Background

Contextualizing Questions

1. What kind of text are we dealing with?
2. When was it written?
3. Who wrote it?
4. For what audience was it intended?
5. For what purpose was it written?

At the invitation of the Rochester Ladies Anti-Slavery Society, Frederick Douglass delivered this oral communication on July 5, 1852, at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York. It was reported and reprinted in Northern newspapers and was published and sold equally a twoscore-page pamphlet within weeks of its delivery. The 500 to 600 people who heard Douglass speak were more often than not sympathetic to his remarks. A paper noted that when he sat down, "in that location was a universal outburst of adulation." Nonetheless, many who read his oral communication would not have been so enthusiastic. Even Northerners who were anti-slavery were not necessarily pro-abolitionism. Many were content to permit Southerners continue to hold slaves, a right they believed was upheld by the Constitution. They but did not want to slavery to spread to areas where it did not exist. In this Independence Day oration, Douglass sought to persuade those people to embrace what was and so considered the extreme position of abolition.

He also sought to modify minds about the abilities and intelligence of African Americans. In 1852 many, if not well-nigh, white Americans believed that African Americans were inferior, indeed, less than fully human. Douglass tries to dispel these notions through an impressive brandish of liberal learning. His speech gives aplenty evidence of knowledge of rhetoric, history, literature, religion, economic science, poetry, music, constabulary, fifty-fifty advances in technology.

Text Analysis

Introduction ('Exordium'): Paragraphs ane–iii

Close Reading Questions

i. What are introductions supposed to practice?
They seek to engage the interest of listeners and make them receptive to the speaker'south message. Introductions can inform listeners of the subject or the purpose of a speech, attempt to convince them that a topic is important and worthy of their attention, or ingratiate a speaker with the audience.

two. What does Douglass try to do in this introduction? Cite evidence from the text to support your answer.
Considering his audience is familiar with the subject matter of Fourth of July speeches and because it recognizes the importance of the occasion, in his introduction Douglass does not take to sketch out his topic or argue for its significance. Instead, he sets out to ingratiate himself with his listeners. He praises their importance and claims to be humbled by their stature. He "quails" and "shrinks" before them. He distrusts his "limited powers of speech." His ease is credible, not real.

3. Why does he say that "apologies of this sort are mostly considered apartment and unmeaning"?
He calls attention to the rhetorical conventions of introductions to betoken to his audience that in this example they do non employ. He seeks to win their trust past assuring them he is sincere.

four. The word "flat" frequently ways level or smooth. In this context how is Douglass defining the word "apartment"?
Here the word "apartment" is used to mean boring or superficial. Using the context we can run into that Douglass intends the connotation of the word "flat" non to exist level but instead to mean something that lacks depth or emotion backside it.

5. Why would it exist "out of the common way" for him to deliver a Fourth of July oration?
As he reminds his audition in the final paragraph of the introduction, he is an escaped slave. Past calling attention to the fact that a slave has been invited to speak on liberty, he employs irony, a strategy he volition employ throughout the speech to emphasize sure themes.

half-dozen. There are contradictions in Douglass'due south self-presentation. What are they? Cite specific instances of them in the text. How tin can yous account for them?
In the offset paragraph not only does Douglass depict his "powers of speech" as "express," simply he as well maintains that he has "limited experience" in exercising them, which he claims to accept done chiefly in "country school houses." Yet in the side by side paragraph he says that he has spoken in Corinthian Hall many times to many of the same people sitting before him now. The final judgement of the second paragraph ("But neither…") suggests what he is doing. He is walking a tightrope. He seeks at in one case to ingratiate himself with a display of humility while at the same time establishing his authority equally a speaker and justifying his presence on the platform. He continues this balancing act in the next paragraph when he asserts that he has "lilliputian…learning." All the same he deploys the term "exordium," which contradicts the little-learning claim by revealing a study-acquired vocabulary and a knowledge of formal rhetoric.

7. What expectations do you think a white audience would accept for a black speaker in 1852? How does Douglass accost these expectations in his introduction?
In this introduction Douglass is doing more than only presenting himself to his audience. When he raises the topic of slavery in the tertiary paragraph, he brings into his text a topic which the colour of his skin has already brought into Corinthian Hall, racism. Even amid some abolitionists there existed the potent prejudice that African Americans were inferior, indeed, something less than fully human. Douglass'south entire speech is designed to do dispel that belief. In his introduction he begins to practise and so with that subtle wink of learning revealed in his use of "exordium." Thus with an ironic wink he signals to his listeners that they are in for a serious display of learning and rhetorical skill, a feat quite across the capacities of an inferior being.

1. Mr. President, Friends and Boyfriend Citizens: He who could address this audition without a quailing sensation, has stronger fretfulness than I have. I do not remember always to accept appeared as a speaker before whatsoever assembly more than shrinkingly, nor with greater distrust of my ability, than I do this day. A feeling has crept over me, quite unfavorable to the exercise of my express powers of spoken language. The task before me is ane which requires much previous thought and study for its proper performance. I know that apologies of this sort are more often than not considered flat and unmeaning. I trust, however, that mine will non exist so considered. Should I seem at ease, my appearance would much misrepresent me. The petty experience I take had in addressing public meetings, in country schoolhouses, assets me nada on the present occasion.

2. The papers and placards say, that I am to deliver a 4th [of] July oration. This certainly sounds large, and out of the common way, for it is true that I take often had the privilege to speak in this beautiful Hall, and to address many who at present honor me with their presence. Only neither their familiar faces, nor the perfect gage I think I have of Corinthian Hall, seems to free me from embarrassment.

three. The fact is, ladies and gentlemen, the distance between this platform and the slave plantation, from which I escaped, is considerable — and the difficulties to be overcome in getting from the latter to the quondam, are by no ways slight. That I am here today is, to me, a affair of astonishment also every bit of gratitude. You volition non, therefore, be surprised, if in what I have to say, I evince no elaborate preparation, nor grace my voice communication with whatever high sounding exordium. With little experience and with less learning, I accept been able to throw my thoughts hastily and imperfectly together; and trusting to your patient and generous indulgence, I will proceed to lay them before you.

Narrative or Statement of Fact ('Narratio'): Paragraphs 4–29

Paragraph four

Note: Students are likely to be familiar with the function of an introduction in a speech but less so with the function of the narrative section. You might explicate that in an address commemorating an event, speakers often invoke the upshot by offering a narration of information technology. This reminds the audience why they are gathered together, and it offers speakers the opportunity to draw inspiration for the futurity from the event. Douglass's narration clearly performs the first function and, as we shall encounter, the 2nd as well. Merely information technology also performs two other important functions. Looking back on America's revolutionary past, the narration, through implied comparison, condemns America'southward slave-property present. Moreover, it enshrines radical resistance to authorities policy and revolution in the face up of bondage every bit venerated parts of the mainstream American political tradition. In other words, it equates the abolitionists of 1852 with the patriots of 1776, each group denounced in its day as "plotters of mischief, agitators…rebels, dangerous men."

viii. What is the event of Douglass's repetition of the words "your" and "yous" in this paragraph and throughout the voice communication?
The repetition of the words "your" and "you" startlingly emphasizes the distance betwixt Douglass and his audience and signals to his listeners that he does not share their perspective or their attitudes toward the Fourth of July.

nine. Why does Douglass feel hopeful about America's future? Cite testify from the text to back up your answer.
He takes hope from the fact that the country is young, simply seventy-half dozen years former. Its destiny and graphic symbol are not fixed. Thus it may yet alter and abandon slavery.

10. What is he suggesting in the "peachy streams" metaphor?
If America permits slavery to become a deep and permanent part of its life, the nation might benefit from it, or it might be destroyed by it, or it could exist morally drained by information technology. In the end the metaphor is a warning well-nigh what might happen if change does non happen soon.

11. In the sentence "Were the nation older, the patriot'southward middle might be sadder, and the reformer's brow heavier," why does Douglass equate the patriot and the reformer? Why would both groups be sadder if the nation were older?
In this part of his speech Douglass takes pains to equate the founding patriots with contemporary anti-slavery reformers. He begins to make that equation hither. The nation, Douglass tells his audition, is nonetheless young, not set in its style, and thus more susceptible to change. Past inference, were information technology older, it would be more set in its ways, and the reformer who would want to change those means, would be lamentable. But why would a patriot exist sad? From Douglass'southward perspective, he would be lamentable for the same reason. In Douglass's view the patriots established a simply nation, one that would not tolerate chains. Were the nation to mature with the injustice of slavery securely entrenched in information technology, America would beguile the ideals of the Revolution, and thus the patriot would exist sad.

iv. This, for the purpose of this celebration, is the quaternary of July. It is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. It carries your minds back to the day, and to the act of your great deliverance; and to the signs, and to the wonders, associated with that act, and that day. This celebration also marks the beginning of some other year of your national life; and reminds y'all that the Democracy of America is now 76 years old. I am glad, fellow-citizens, that your nation is so young. 70-six years, though a skilful sometime historic period for a man, is but a mere speck in the life of a nation. Three score years and ten is the allotted time for individual men; merely nations number their years past thousands. According to this fact, you lot are, even now, only in the outset of your national career, however lingering in the period of childhood. I repeat, I am glad this is so. In that location is hope in the idea, and hope is much needed, nether the dark clouds which lower higher up the horizon. The eye of the reformer is met with angry flashes, portending disastrous times; but his heart may well shell lighter at the idea that America is immature, and that she [America] is all the same in the impressible stage of her existence. May he non hope that high lessons of wisdom, of justice and of truth, volition even so give direction to her destiny? Were the nation older, the patriot'southward heart might exist sadder, and the reformer'southward brow heavier. Its future might be shrouded in gloom, and the hope of its prophets get out in sorrow. At that place is alleviation in the idea that America is young. Great streams are not easily turned from channels, worn deep in the course of ages. They may sometimes rise in serenity and stately majesty, and inundate the land, refreshing and fertilizing the world with their mysterious properties. They may also rise in wrath and fury, and carry away, on their aroused waves, the accumulated wealth of years of toil and hardship. They, even so, gradually period dorsum to the same old channel, and catamenia on as serenely as e'er. Merely, while the river may non be turned bated, information technology may dry up, and go out nothing behind simply the withered branch, and the unsightly stone, to howl in the abyss-sweeping air current, the sad tale of departed glory. As with rivers so with nations.

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Paragraph 6

12. Co-ordinate to Douglass, what did the "fathers" do? Cite specific language from the text.
They rejected "the infallibility of authorities," "pronounced the measures of authorities unjust, unreasonable, and oppressive," and sided with "the right against the wrong, with the weak against the strong, and with the oppressed against the oppressor."

thirteen. Why does Douglass assert his understanding with the actions of the "fathers"?
Douglass asserts his agreement with the deportment of founders and embraces the principles of the Revolution to create a bail with his audience and to reassure them that, to some degree at to the lowest degree, he participates in the American political tradition.

6. But, your fathers, who had not adopted the stylish idea of this twenty-four hours, of the infallibility of government, and the absolute grapheme of its acts, presumed to differ from the home government in respect to the wisdom and the justice of some of those burdens and restraints. They went so far in their excitement as to pronounce the measures of authorities unjust, unreasonable, and oppressive, and altogether such as ought not to be quietly submitted to. I scarcely need say, young man-citizens, that my opinion of those measures fully accords with that of your fathers. Such a declaration of agreement on my part would not be worth much to anybody. It would, certainly, prove nothing, as to what role I might accept taken, had I lived during the great controversy of 1776. To say at present that America was right, and England wrong, is exceedingly piece of cake. Everybody can say it; the dastard, not less than the noble brave, tin can flippantly discant on the tyranny of England towards the American Colonies. It is stylish to practice and so; but in that location was a time when to pronounce confronting England, and in favor of the crusade of the colonies, tried men'due south souls. They who did so were accounted in their day, plotters of mischief, agitators and rebels, unsafe men. To side with the right, against the wrong, with the weak confronting the stiff, and with the oppressed confronting the oppressor! here lies the merit, and the one which, of all others, seems unfashionable in our day. The cause of liberty may be stabbed by the men who celebrity in the deeds of your fathers. Merely, to proceed.

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Paragraph 23

14. How would you characterize the construction of the first four sentences of this paragraph?
The structure balances ideas through antithesis, a rhetorical device that poses contrary qualities against each other: They were peace men, but they preferred revolution….".

15. How does the structure of those sentences reinforce the main thought of the paragraph?
The carefully balanced structure reinforces the thought that the founders were themselves counterbalanced, reasonable men.

sixteen. What inference does Douglass want his audience to describe from his portrayal of the founders?
Since he established an identification between the founders and the abolitionists in paragraphs four and half-dozen, the temperate qualities he ascribes hither to the sometime use to the latter as well, and this ascription is important considering information technology addresses the charge that abolitionists were fanatics and monomaniacs.

17. Often speakers and writers brand their points every bit much past leaving things out as by putting things in. This strategy is known every bit the strategic silence. What has Douglass omitted in his portrayal of the fathers? Why would he choose to do so?
Douglass never mentions the fact that many of the fathers were slave owners. This silence allows Douglass to create his own version of the fathers, untainted by facts that would challenge his portrayal. Similarly, they deflect the minds of his listeners from points that might lead them to resist his statement.

eighteen. Do you think Douglass'southward omission weakens his argument?
Here you lot might encourage a debate amidst your students. Some will say the omission weakens Douglass'southward statement considering it straightforwardly refutes his case. How tin he say that the "fathers" sided "with the oppressed against the oppressor" when many of them were themselves oppressors? Other students may argue that this omission does not weaken his example. Despite being slaveholders, men like Washington and Jefferson did, in fact, establish a nation congenital on the ethics of justice and freedom. That many of the founders did not live upward to those ethics does not make them any less compelling. As Douglass says in paragraphs xvi and seventeen (paragraphs nosotros do non analyze in this lesson), the "fathers" enshrined those "saving principles" in the Declaration of Independence, and information technology is to those principles that the nation must cling. Thus in this part of the speech communication Douglass argues that simply considering the "fathers" did non fully cover justice and liberty in 1776 does not mean that his listeners should non in 1852.

23. They were peace men; only they preferred revolution to peaceful submission to bondage. They were quiet men; but they did not shrink from agitating against oppression. They showed abstinence; but they knew its limits. They believed in club; just not in the order of tyranny [regime rule of absolute ability]. With them, zero was "settled" that was not right. With them, justice, freedom and humanity were "last;" non slavery and oppression. You may well cherish the memory of such men. They were great in their 24-hour interval and generation. Their solid manhood stands out the more than as nosotros contrast it with these degenerate times.

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Arguments and Counter-Arguments ('Confirmatio' and 'Refutatio'):
Paragraphs 30–70

Paragraph 35

Note: Arguments and counter-arguments prevarication at the heart of persuasive discourse. Review with your students what speakers and writers endeavor to exercise when making a case. They put forth their arguments and refute those of their opponents. To win over an audition, they may entreatment to their listeners' reason by laying out a logical instance, or they may seek to win their trust past impressing them with sound sense or loftier moral character, or they may entreatment to their emotions. We offer passages that illustrate all of these strategies.

xix. What point of view does Douglass denote in this paragraph?
In paragraph 3 Douglass alluded to the fact that he had been a slave. In this paragraph his listeners notice the full import of the fact for his oral communication. Identifying himself with the enslaved, he announces that he will consider the Fourth of July from their perspective.

35. Swain-citizens; in a higher place your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, today, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. If I practise forget, if I do not faithfully remember those haemorrhage children of sorrow this twenty-four hours, "may my right mitt forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my oral fissure!" To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would exist treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world. My subject, then boyfriend-citizens, is AMERICAN SLAVERY. I shall see, this day, and its pop characteristics, from the slave'due south point of view. Continuing, at that place, identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I practise not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and bear of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July! Whether we plow to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the behave of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, fake to the present, and solemnly binds herself to exist false to the futurity. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I volition, in the proper noun of humanity which is outraged, in the name of freedom which is fettered, in the proper noun of the constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to phone call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I tin can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery — the peachy sin and shame of America! "I will not equivocate; I will not excuse;" I will employ the severest language I tin can command; and withal not one word shall escape me that whatsoever man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a slaveholder, shall not confess to be correct and but.

Paragraph 36

Activity: Douglass's Utilise of Syllogistic Reasoning
In paragraph 36 Douglass uses logic to evidence that slaves are homo beings. Specifically, he employs a syllogism. This activity explores syllogistic reasoning and the style Douglass employs it.

36. Only I fancy I hear some one of my audience say, it is just in this circumstance that you lot and your brother abolitionists neglect to make a favorable impression on the public heed. Would you argue more, and denounce less, would you persuade more, and rebuke less, your cause would exist much more likely to succeed. Simply, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. What point in the anti-slavery creed would yous take me argue? On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need lite? Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? That point is conceded already. Nobody doubts it. The slaveholders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. In that location are seventy-two crimes in the Land of Virginia, which, if committed by a black human being, (no matter how ignorant he exist), subject him to the punishment of death; while simply ii of the same crimes volition subject a white human being to the like punishment. What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible being? The manhood of the slave is conceded. It is admitted in the fact that Southern statute books are covered with enactments forbidding, under astringent fines and penalties, the teaching of the slave to read or to write. When you tin can point to whatsoever such laws, in reference to the beasts of the field, then I may consent to argue the manhood of the slave. When the dogs in your streets, when the fowls of the air, when the cattle on your hills, when the fish of the ocean, and the reptiles that crawl, shall be unable to distinguish the slave from a brute, then will I argue with you that the slave is a man!

Paragraph 37

xx. How does paragraph 37 relate to paragraph 36?
Douglass continues to contend that slaves are men.

21. How does Douglass develop this paragraph?
He does so past listing examples of some of things slaves practise that are done past others also: ploughing, planting, building, writing, raising children, etc.

37. For the nowadays, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. Is it non astonishing that, while we are ploughing, planting and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of contumely, iron, copper, silverish and gold; that, while nosotros are reading, writing and cyphering, acting as clerks, merchants and secretaries, having amidst us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators and teachers; that, while we are engaged in all manner of enterprises common to other men, digging aureate in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hill-side, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives and children, and, above all, confessing and worshipping the Christian's God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave, nosotros are chosen upon to prove that we are men!

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Paragraph 39

22. How does Douglass maintain the order and coherence of the outset sentence of this paragraph?
He employs parallelism, a type of organisation in which a writer places like ideas in a similar structure. Here Douglass parallels the indignities slaves suffer in a series of infinitive phrases: "…to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty," etc.

23. What is the consequence of the repetition of infinitive phrases ("to make," "to rob," "to work," etc.) in the starting time sentence?
They establish a rhythm that emphasizes each indignity and heighten the emotional impact of the argument.

39. What, am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to continue them ignorant of their relations to their swain men, to shell them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, is wrong? No! I will not. I have meliorate employments for my time and forcefulness than such arguments would imply.

40. What, and then, remains to be argued? Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity [preachers, ministers] are mistaken? There is blasphemy in the thought. That which is inhuman, cannot be divine! Who can reason on such a proffer? They that can, may; I cannot. The time for such statement is past.

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Paragraph 45

Activity: The Emotional Entreatment
In paragraph 45 Douglass argues from emotion. This activeness explores the emotional entreatment and how Douglass employs it.

45. Behold the practical performance of this internal slave-trade, the American slave-trade, sustained by American politics and America religion. Here yous volition run across men and women reared like swine for the marketplace. You know what is a swine-drover [herder]? I volition testify yous a man-drover. They inhabit all our Southern States. They perambulate the state, and crowd the highways of the nation, with droves of human stock. You will encounter ane of these human flesh-jobbers [flesh-sellers], armed with pistol, whip and bowie-knife, driving a company of a hundred men, women, and children, from the Potomac to the slave market at New Orleans. These wretched people are to be sold singly, or in lots, to suit purchasers. They are food for the cotton-field, and the deadly sugar-mill. Mark the sad procession, every bit it moves wearily along, and the inhuman wretch who drives them. Hear his fell yells and his blood-chilling oaths, as he hurries on his abashed captives! There, see the one-time human, with locks thinned and greyness. Bandage ane glance, if yous please, upon that young female parent, whose shoulders are bare to the scorching sun, her briny tears falling on the forehead of the babe in her arms. Run into, too, that girl of thirteen, weeping, yeah! weeping, equally she thinks of the mother from whom she has been torn! The collection moves tardily. Heat and sorrow have nearly consumed their strength; suddenly you hear a quick snap, like the discharge of a rifle; the fetters clank, and the chain rattles simultaneously; your ears are saluted with a scream, that seems to accept torn its way to the heart of your soul! The scissure you heard, was the sound of the slave-whip; the scream you lot heard, was from the woman you saw with the babe. Her speed had faltered under the weight of her child and her chains! that gash on her shoulder tells her to move on. Follow the drove to New Orleans. Nourish the sale; see men examined like horses; see the forms of women rudely and brutally exposed to the shocking gaze of American slave-buyers. See this drove sold and separated forever; and never forget the deep, sad sobs that arose from that scattered multitude. Tell me citizens, WHERE, under the dominicus, you can witness a spectacle more than fiendish and shocking. However this is just a glance at the American slave-trade, every bit it exists, at this moment, in the ruling office of the United States.

Paragraphs 46–48

24. What strategy of argument does Douglass apply in this department of his voice communication?
Hither Douglass established his own moral authority to speak on the upshot of slavery by citing his own feel, by establishing himself as reliable witness with first-paw information.

46. I was built-in amid such sights and scenes. To me the American slave-trade is a terrible reality. When a child, my soul was often pierced with a sense of its horrors. I lived on Philpot Street, Fell's Point, Baltimore, and have watched from the wharves, the slave ships in the Bowl, anchored from the shore, with their cargoes of human flesh, waiting for favorable winds to waft them downwardly the Chesapeake. In that location was, at that time, a grand slave mart kept at the head of Pratt Street, by Austin Woldfolk. His agents were sent into every town and county in Maryland, announcing their arrival, through the papers, and on flaming "paw-bills," headed Cash FOR NEGROES. These men were generally well dressed men, and very captivating in their manners. Ever ready to beverage, to care for, and to gamble. The fate of many a slave has depended upon the turn of a single card; and many a kid has been snatched from the arms of its female parent past bargains bundled in a state of brutal drunkenness.

47. The flesh-mongers assemble upwardly their victims past dozens, and drive them, chained, to the general depot at Baltimore. When a sufficient number have been collected here, a ship is chartered, for the purpose of conveying the forlorn crew to Mobile, or to New Orleans. From the slave prison house to the transport, they are unremarkably driven in the darkness of nighttime; for since the antislavery agitation, a sure caution is observed.

48. In the deep still darkness of midnight, I have been often aroused by the dead heavy footsteps, and the piteous cries of the chained gangs that passed our door. The anguish of my adolescent centre was intense; and I was often consoled, when speaking to my mistress in the morning, to hear her say that the custom was very wicked; that she hated to hear the rattle of the chains, and the center-rending cries. I was glad to discover one who sympathized with me in my horror.

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Paragraph 63

25. How does this paragraph relate to the overall thesis of the speech?
Here Douglass offers the strongest illustration of the ways in which America is fake to the ideals it has ready for itself.

26. What is the thesis of this paragraph?
The ways in which Americans practice their politics and religion are inconsistent with the values and ideals they claim to be post-obit.

27. How does Douglass'due south sentence construction reflect the thesis of the paragraph?
Of the 11 sentences in this paragraph, ten exhibit a parallel compound structure in which the first clause identifies an ideal and the post-obit clause refutes America'due south claim to it. Each sentence begins with a slightly accusatory "you lot" and and then pivots at a conjunction or a discussion functioning as 1 — "while," "but," "nevertheless" — that suggests contradiction.

63. Americans! your republican politics, non less than your republican religion, are flagrantly inconsistent. You boast of your love of liberty, your superior civilisation, and your pure Christianity, while the whole political power of the nation (every bit embodied in the two great political parties), is solemnly pledged to support and perpetuate the enslavement of three millions of your countrymen. Y'all hurl your anathemas at the crowned headed tyrants of Russia and Austria, and pride yourselves on your Democratic institutions, while you yourselves consent to exist the mere tools and bodyguards of the tyrants of Virginia and Carolina. You invite to your shores fugitives of oppression from away, honor them with banquets, greet them with ovations, cheer them, toast them, salute them, protect them, and pour out your coin to them like water; but the fugitives from your own state you advertise, hunt, arrest, shoot and kill. You celebrity in your refinement and your universal didactics notwithstanding yous maintain a organisation as cruel and dreadful as ever stained the graphic symbol of a nation — a organization begun in avarice, supported in pride, and perpetuated in cruelty. You shed tears over fallen Hungary, and make the sad story of her wrongs the theme of your poets, statesmen and orators, till your gallant sons are ready to fly to arms to vindicate her [Hungary'south] crusade against her oppressors; but, in regard to the ten g wrongs of the American slave, you would enforce the strictest silence, and would hail him as an enemy of the nation who dares to make those wrongs the subject of public discourse! You are all on fire at the mention of liberty for French republic or for Ireland; merely are equally common cold as an iceberg at the idea of liberty for the enslaved of America. You discourse eloquently on the dignity of labor; yet, you sustain a system which, in its very essence, casts a stigma upon labor. You lot can bare your bosom to the storm of British artillery to throw off a threepenny tax on tea; and yet wring the last hard-earned farthing [a coin formerly used in Uk] from the grasp of the black laborers of your state. Y'all profess to believe "that, of 1 blood, God made all nations of men to dwell on the face up of all the earth," and hath commanded all men, everywhere to dear i another; yet y'all notoriously hate, (and celebrity in your hatred), all men whose skins are not colored like your own. You declare, before the globe, and are understood by the world to declare, that you "hold these truths to be self axiomatic, that all men are created equal; and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; and that, among these are, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;" and even so, you concord securely, in a bondage which, according to your own Thomas Jefferson, "is worse than ages of that which your fathers rose in rebellion to oppose," a seventh part of the inhabitants of your country.

…

Paragraph 68

Activity: Argument By Analogy
In paragraph 68, Douglass introduces some other tool of persuasion, argument past analogy, which is explored in this activity.

Note: This paragraph is an important function of Douglass's refutatio and as such deserves careful attention. Non only does he address a powerful justification for the continuation of slavery — the conventionalities that it is protected past the Constitution — just he also asserts a controversial theory about Constitutional interpretation.

68. Fellow-citizens! in that location is no affair in respect to which, the people of the North take allowed themselves to be so ruinously imposed upon, as that of the pro-slavery character of the Constitution. In that instrument I hold there is neither warrant, license, nor sanction of the mean thing; but, interpreted as information technology ought to be interpreted, the Constitution is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY Certificate. Read its preamble, consider its purposes. Is slavery among them? Is it at the gateway [the preamble]? or is it in the temple [the body of the Constitution]? It is neither. While I do not intend to argue this question on the present occasion, let me enquire, if it be not somewhat atypical that, if the Constitution were intended to be, by its framers and adopters, a slave-belongings instrument, why neither slavery, slaveholding, nor slave can anywhere be found in information technology. What would be thought of an instrument [legal agreement, in this case a deed], drawn up, legally fatigued up, for the purpose of entitling [giving ownership to] the city of Rochester to a tract [piece] of state, in which no mention of land was made? Now, in that location are sure rules of interpretation, for the proper agreement of all legal instruments. These rules are well established. They are plain, common-sense rules, such every bit you and I, and all of the states, can understand and employ, without having passed years in the study of police. I scout the idea that the question of the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of slavery is not a question for the people. I concur that every American citizen has a right to class an opinion of the Constitution, and to propagate that stance, and to use all honorable ways to make his opinion the prevailing ane. Without this right, the liberty of an American citizen would exist equally insecure as that of a Frenchman. Ex-Vice-President Dallas tells us that the Constitution is an object to which no American mind can be also attentive, and no American heart besides devoted. He further says, the Constitution, in its words, is evidently and intelligible, and is meant for the home-bred, unsophisticated understandings of our young man-citizens. Senator Berrien tells usa that the Constitution is the key constabulary, that which controls all others. The charter of our liberties, which every citizen has a personal interest in understanding thoroughly. The testimony of Senator Breese, Lewis Cass, and many others that might exist named, who are everywhere esteemed as sound lawyers, and then regard the Constitution. I take it, therefore, that information technology is not presumption in a private citizen to form an opinion of that musical instrument.

…

Conclusion ('Peroratio'): Paragraph 71

Paragraph 71

Note: Conclusions are of import. Inquire your students how they office and what they should do. The concluding words an audition hears, they often linger and shape the impression of an entire spoken language. Traditionally, speakers apply them to do four things: leave the audience with a favorable opinion, emphasize key points, stimulate an appropriate emotional response, or summarize the statement. Douglass does not emphasize cardinal points or restate his arguments. Rather, he seeks to cast his case for abolition in a favorable light and instill promise in his listeners.

28. What are conclusions supposed to practise?
Traditionally, four things: go out the audience with a favorable stance, emphasize key points, stimulate an advisable emotional response, or summarize the argument.

29. Why is information technology important for Douglass to tell his listeners that he does "not despair of this country"?
Fifty-fifty though he has just delivered a dark and stinging denunciation of the state, he does non want his listeners to leave the hall feeling depressed and hopeless.

30. On what does Douglass base the hope he expresses in this paragraph?
He looks to the by and the ethics expressed in the Announcement of Independence. For Douglass those ideals, if the nation can live up to them, brand the United States, despite its flaws, a place of promise and hope for the enslaved. He also looks to the futurity in which he believes commercial and technological progress — ships using steam to make a "pathway" over the body of water and telegraph cables using "lightning" (electricity) to practice the same under it — will spread intelligence, enlightenment, and moral progress throughout the earth.

71. Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark moving picture I take this solar day presented of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery. "The arm of the Lord is not shortened," and the doom of slavery is certain. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with promise. While drawing encouragement from the Declaration of Independence, the nifty principles information technology contains, and the genius of American Institutions, my spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age. Nations do non now stand in the same relation to each other that they did ages ago. No nation can now close itself up from the surrounding world, and trot round in the aforementioned old path of its fathers without interference. The fourth dimension was when such could be done. Long established customs of hurtful grapheme could formerly fence themselves in, and practice their evil work with social impunity. Noesis was then bars and enjoyed by the privileged few, and the multitude walked on in mental darkness. But a change has now come over the diplomacy of mankind. Walled cities and empires have become unfashionable. The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong city. Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe. It makes its pathway over and under the sea, as well as on the world. Wind, steam, and lightning are its chartered agents. Oceans no longer divide, just link nations together. From Boston to London is now a holiday excursion. Infinite is comparatively annihilated. Thoughts expressed on one side of the Atlantic are distinctly heard on the other. The furthermost and almost fabled Pacific rolls in grandeur at our anxiety. The Angelic Empire, the mystery of ages, is being solved. The fiat of the Almighty, "Let there be Light," has not yet spent its force. No corruption, no outrage whether in gustatory modality, sport or avarice, can now hide itself from the all-pervading light. The iron shoe, and bedridden foot of People's republic of china must be seen, in contrast with nature. Africa must rising and put on her yet unwoven garment. "Ethiopia shall stretch out her hand unto God." In the fervent aspirations of William Lloyd Garrison, I say, and let every heart join in saying information technology:

God speed the year of jubilee
The wide world o'er!
When from their galling chains set free,
Th' oppressed shall vilely bend the knee,
And vesture the yoke of tyranny
Similar brutes, no more than:—
That year will come, and Liberty's reign,
To man his plundered rights over again
Restore.

God speed the day when human blood
Shall terminate to menstruation!
In every clime be understood,
The claims of human brotherhood,
And each return for evil, skilful—
Not blow for blow:—
That day volition come, all feuds to terminate,
And change into a faithful friend
Each foe.

God speed the 60 minutes, the glorious hour,
When none on earth
Shall exercise a lordly ability,
Nor in a tyrant's presence cower;
Only all to Manhood'due south stature belfry,
By equal birth!—
That 60 minutes volition come up, to each, to all,
And from his prison-business firm the thrall
Go along.

Until that year, day, hr arrive,
With head and centre and mitt I'll strive,
To break the rod, and rend the gyve,—
The spoiler of his casualty deprive,―
And then witness Heaven!
And never from my chosen post,
Whate'er the peril or the cost,
Be driven.

---

Image: Daguerreotype of Frederick Douglass, ca. 1855 (creator unknown). Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Rubel Collection, Partial and Promised Gift of William Rubel, 2001 (2001.756). Reproduced by permission.

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Source: https://americainclass.org/what-to-the-slave-is-the-fourth-of-july/

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