What to a Slave Is the Fourth of July Summary

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

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

Agreement

In the 1850s abolitionism was non a widely embraced movement in the United states of america. It was considered radical, extreme, and dangerous. In "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" Frederick Douglass sought not only to convince people of the wrongfulness of slavery just too to brand abolition more acceptable to Northern whites.

Frederick Douglass, ca 1855, Metropolitan Museum of Fine 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 Complication

Grades xi-CCR complexity band.
For more than information on text complexity see these resources from achievethecore.org.

Text Type

Speech, historical, informational.

Click here for standards and skills for this lesson.

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Common Cadre State Standards

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

Advanced Placement Us History

• Key Concept 5.2 (I-B) (Abolitionists…mounted a highly visible entrada confronting slavery…)

Advanced Placement Linguistic communication and Limerick

• Developing…the ability to evaluate…main…sources
• Reading nonfiction…to give students opportunities to identify and explain an writer'due south use of rhetorical strategies and techniques

Teacher's Note

In addition to making historical points virtually nineteenth-century attitudes toward slavery, race, and abolition, you can use this speech to teach formal rhetoric. We have divided the address into four sections co-ordinate to the role of each one. This division follows the classic structure of argumentative writing:

1. paragraphs 1–three: introduction (exordium)
2. paragraphs iv–29: narrative or statement of fact (narratio)
3. paragraphs 30–70: arguments and counter-arguments (confirmatio and refutatio)
4. paragraph 71: conclusion (peroratio)

Nosotros accept included notes that explain the function of each section too as questions that invite discussion of the ways in which Douglass deploys rhetoric to make his example.

This lesson features v interactive activities, which can be accessed by clicking on this icon . The first explores the subtle manner in which Douglass compares the patriots of 1776 with the abolitionists of 1852. The second challenges students to make up one's mind how Douglass supports his thesis. The third focuses on his use of syllogistic reasoning, while the 4th examines how he makes his instance through emotion and the 5th through illustration.

We recommend assigning the entire text . For close reading we accept analyzed eighteen of the voice communication's seventy-one paragraphs through fine-grained questions, near of them text-dependent, that volition enable students to explore rhetorical strategies and significant themes. The version below, designed for teachers, provides responses to those questions in the "Text Analysis" department. The classroom version , a printable worksheet for utilize with students, omits those responses and this "Instruction the Text" note. Terms that announced in blue are defined on hover and in a printable glossary on the last folio 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 analyze.

Background

Contextualizing Questions

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

At the invitation of the Rochester Ladies Anti-Slavery Club, Frederick Douglass delivered this speech on July five, 1852, at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York. It was reported and reprinted in Northern newspapers and was published and sold as a xl-page pamphlet within weeks of its delivery. The 500 to 600 people who heard Douglass speak were mostly sympathetic to his remarks. A newspaper noted that when he sat down, "in that location was a universal burst of applause." Nonetheless, many who read his speech would not have been so enthusiastic. Even Northerners who were anti-slavery were not necessarily pro-abolition. Many were content to let Southerners continue to hold slaves, a right they believed was upheld by the Constitution. They simply did not want to slavery to spread to areas where it did non be. In this Independence Day oration, Douglass sought to persuade those people to embrace what was and then considered the farthermost position of abolition.

He too sought to change minds well-nigh the abilities and intelligence of African Americans. In 1852 many, if not most, white Americans believed that African Americans were inferior, indeed, less than fully man. Douglass tries to dispel these notions through an impressive display of liberal learning. His speech communication gives ample testify of cognition of rhetoric, history, literature, religion, economics, poesy, music, police, even advances in engineering.

Text Assay

Introduction ('Exordium'): Paragraphs 1–three

Close Reading Questions

1. What are introductions supposed to do?
They seek to engage the interest of listeners and make them receptive to the speaker's message. Introductions can inform listeners of the bailiwick or the purpose of a speech, attempt to convince them that a topic is of import and worthy of their attention, or ingratiate a speaker with the audition.

2. What does Douglass endeavour to do in this introduction? Cite prove from the text to back up your respond.
Because 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 have to sketch out his topic or fence for its significance. Instead, he sets out to ingratiate himself with his listeners. He praises their importance and claims to be humbled past their stature. He "quails" and "shrinks" before them. He distrusts his "limited powers of speech." His ease is apparent, not real.

iii. Why does he say that "apologies of this sort are generally considered flat and unmeaning"?
He calls attending to the rhetorical conventions of introductions to signal to his audience that in this instance they do non apply. He seeks to win their trust by assuring them he is sincere.

4. The give-and-take "flat" often means level or smooth. In this context how is Douglass defining the word "apartment"?
Here the word "flat" is used to mean tiresome or superficial. Using the context we tin can see that Douglass intends the connotation of the word "flat" not to be level but instead to hateful something that lacks depth or emotion behind it.

5. Why would information technology exist "out of the common manner" for him to deliver a Fourth of July oration?
Equally he reminds his audience 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 freedom, he employs irony, a strategy he will utilize throughout the speech to emphasize certain themes.

6. There are contradictions in Douglass'due south cocky-presentation. What are they? Cite specific instances of them in the text. How can y'all account for them?
In the offset paragraph not only does Douglass depict his "powers of speech" equally "limited," but he also maintains that he has "limited experience" in exercising them, which he claims to have washed chiefly in "country school houses." All the same in the next paragraph he says that he has spoken in Corinthian Hall many times to many of the aforementioned people sitting earlier him at present. The last sentence of the second paragraph ("But neither…") suggests what he is doing. He is walking a tightrope. He seeks at once to ingratiate himself with a display of humility while at the same fourth dimension establishing his authorisation as a speaker and justifying his presence on the platform. He continues this balancing human activity in the next paragraph when he asserts that he has "lilliputian…learning." Nonetheless he deploys the term "exordium," which contradicts the little-learning claim by revealing a study-acquired vocabulary and a cognition of formal rhetoric.

7. What expectations practice you lot think a white audition would have for a black speaker in 1852? How does Douglass address these expectations in his introduction?
In this introduction Douglass is doing more than than just presenting himself to his audience. When he raises the topic of slavery in the third paragraph, he brings into his text a topic which the color of his skin has already brought into Corinthian Hall, racism. Fifty-fifty among some abolitionists there existed the strong prejudice that African Americans were inferior, indeed, something less than fully human. Douglass'due south entire speech is designed to do dispel that belief. In his introduction he begins to do then with that subtle wink of learning revealed in his utilise of "exordium." Thus with an ironic wink he signals to his listeners that they are in for a serious brandish of learning and rhetorical skill, a feat quite beyond the capacities of an inferior existence.

1. Mr. President, Friends and Swain Citizens: He who could accost this audience without a quailing sensation, has stronger nerves than I have. I do not retrieve ever to have appeared as a speaker before whatever assembly more shrinkingly, nor with greater distrust of my ability, than I practise this twenty-four hours. A feeling has crept over me, quite unfavorable to the practise of my limited powers of speech. The task before me is i which requires much previous thought and study for its proper performance. I know that apologies of this sort are generally considered flat and unmeaning. I trust, however, that mine will not be and so considered. Should I seem at ease, my appearance would much misrepresent me. The little feel I have had in addressing public meetings, in state schoolhouses, avails me zip 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 accept often had the privilege to speak in this cute Hall, and to address many who now honour me with their presence. Just neither their familiar faces, nor the perfect gage I retrieve I take of Corinthian Hall, seems to free me from embarrassment.

iii. 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 former, are past no means slight. That I am here today is, to me, a matter of astonishment besides as of gratitude. Yous will non, therefore, be surprised, if in what I have to say, I evince no elaborate training, nor grace my speech with any loftier sounding exordium. With niggling experience and with less learning, I have 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 lot.

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

Paragraph iv

Notation: Students are likely to be familiar with the function of an introduction in a speech communication but less and so with the role of the narrative section. You might explain that in an address commemorating an event, speakers often invoke the outcome past offering a narration of it. This reminds the audience why they are gathered together, and it offers speakers the opportunity to draw inspiration for the future from the event. Douglass's narration clearly performs the starting time part and, as we shall see, the second also. But it also performs two other of import functions. Looking dorsum on America'due south revolutionary by, the narration, through implied comparison, condemns America'due south slave-holding nowadays. Moreover, information technology enshrines radical resistance to government policy and revolution in the face of bondage as venerated parts of the mainstream American political tradition. In other words, information technology equates the abolitionists of 1852 with the patriots of 1776, each group denounced in its day as "plotters of mischief, agitators…rebels, dangerous men."

eight. What is the effect of Douglass'southward repetition of the words "your" and "you" in this paragraph and throughout the speech 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.

9. Why does Douglass feel hopeful nigh America's time to come? Cite evidence from the text to support your answer.
He takes promise from the fact that the country is young, only lxx-half dozen years old. Its destiny and character are not stock-still. Thus it may yet change and abandon slavery.

10. What is he suggesting in the "great streams" metaphor?
If America permits slavery to get a deep and permanent part of its life, the nation might benefit from it, or it might be destroyed by it, or it could be morally drained by it. In the end the metaphor is a warning almost what might happen if change does not happen soon.

xi. In the sentence "Were the nation older, the patriot's heart 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 brand that equation here. The nation, Douglass tells his audience, is still young, non set in its way, and thus more susceptible to modify. By inference, were it older, information technology would exist more than ready in its means, and the reformer who would want to modify those ways, would exist sad. Simply why would a patriot be sad? From Douglass's perspective, he would be sad for the same reason. In Douglass'southward view the patriots established a just nation, ane that would not tolerate bondage. Were the nation to mature with the injustice of slavery deeply entrenched in information technology, America would betray the ideals of the Revolution, and thus the patriot would be sad.

4. This, for the purpose of this commemoration, is the 4th of July. It is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. This, to y'all, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. It carries your minds back to the 24-hour interval, and to the act of your great deliverance; and to the signs, and to the wonders, associated with that act, and that 24-hour interval. This commemoration likewise marks the beginning of another yr of your national life; and reminds yous that the Republic of America is at present 76 years old. I am glad, beau-citizens, that your nation is then young. Seventy-six years, though a good old historic period for a man, is but a mere speck in the life of a nation. Three score years and 10 is the allotted fourth dimension for private men; but nations number their years by thousands. According to this fact, y'all are, even at present, simply in the first of your national career, withal lingering in the menstruation of babyhood. I echo, I am glad this is so. There is hope in the thought, and hope is much needed, under the nighttime clouds which lower higher up the horizon. The eye of the reformer is met with angry flashes, portending disastrous times; merely his heart may well vanquish lighter at the idea that America is young, and that she [America] is nevertheless in the impressible stage of her being. May he not hope that high lessons of wisdom, of justice and of truth, will yet give direction to her destiny? Were the nation older, the patriot'due south heart might be sadder, and the reformer's forehead heavier. Its hereafter might be shrouded in gloom, and the hope of its prophets go out in sorrow. There is consolation in the thought that America is young. Great streams are not easily turned from channels, worn deep in the course of ages. They may sometimes ascension in quiet and stately majesty, and inundate the land, refreshing and fertilizing the earth with their mysterious backdrop. They may besides rise in wrath and fury, and deport abroad, on their angry waves, the accumulated wealth of years of toil and hardship. They, however, gradually menstruum back to the same onetime channel, and catamenia on equally serenely as e'er. Simply, while the river may non be turned bated, information technology may dry up, and leave zero backside but the withered branch, and the unsightly stone, to howl in the abyss-sweeping wind, the sad tale of departed celebrity. Equally with rivers then with nations.

…

Paragraph 6

12. Co-ordinate to Douglass, what did the "fathers" practice? Cite specific language from the text.
They rejected "the infallibility of authorities," "pronounced the measures of government 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."

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

six. But, your fathers, who had not adopted the fashionable idea of this day, of the infallibility of regime, and the absolute character of its acts, presumed to differ from the dwelling house government in respect to the wisdom and the justice of some of those burdens and restraints. They went then far in their excitement equally to pronounce the measures of regime unjust, unreasonable, and oppressive, and altogether such as ought non to exist quietly submitted to. I scarcely need say, boyfriend-citizens, that my stance of those measures fully accords with that of your fathers. Such a announcement of agreement on my part would non be worth much to anybody. It would, certainly, prove goose egg, as to what role I might have taken, had I lived during the great controversy of 1776. To say now that America was right, and England wrong, is exceedingly easy. Everybody can say it; the dastard, non less than the noble brave, tin can flippantly discant on the tyranny of England towards the American Colonies. It is fashionable to do so; but in that location was a time when to pronounce confronting England, and in favor of the cause of the colonies, tried men'south souls. They who did so were accounted in their mean solar day, plotters of mischief, agitators and rebels, dangerous men. To side with the right, against the wrong, with the weak against the strong, and with the oppressed against the oppressor! hither lies the merit, and the one which, of all others, seems unfashionable in our 24-hour interval. The cause of liberty may be stabbed by the men who celebrity in the deeds of your fathers. But, to proceed.

…

Paragraph 23

14. How would y'all characterize the structure 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, merely they preferred revolution….".

15. How does the construction of those sentences reinforce the principal idea of the paragraph?
The carefully counterbalanced construction reinforces the idea that the founders were themselves balanced, reasonable men.

16. What inference does Douglass want his audience to describe from his portrayal of the founders?
Since he established an identification betwixt the founders and the abolitionists in paragraphs iv and six, the temperate qualities he ascribes here to the onetime use to the latter too, and this ascription is important because information technology addresses the charge that abolitionists were fanatics and monomaniacs.

17. Often speakers and writers make their points as much by leaving things out as past putting things in. This strategy is known as the strategic silence. What has Douglass omitted in his portrayal of the fathers? Why would he choose to practice 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 claiming his portrayal. Similarly, they deflect the minds of his listeners from points that might atomic number 82 them to resist his statement.

18. Do you think Douglass'due south omission weakens his statement?
Hither you might encourage a debate among your students. Some volition say the omission weakens Douglass'south argument because it straightforwardly refutes his case. How can he say that the "fathers" sided "with the oppressed against the oppressor" when many of them were themselves oppressors? Other students may fence that this omission does not weaken his case. Despite being slaveholders, men like Washington and Jefferson did, in fact, establish a nation built on the ideals of justice and liberty. That many of the founders did not live up to those ideals does not make them any less compelling. As Douglass says in paragraphs sixteen and seventeen (paragraphs nosotros do not 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 office of the oral communication Douglass argues that but because the "fathers" did not fully embrace justice and freedom in 1776 does not mean that his listeners should not in 1852.

23. They were peace men; simply they preferred revolution to peaceful submission to bondage. They were quiet men; only they did not shrink from agitating confronting oppression. They showed forbearance; but they knew its limits. They believed in gild; simply non in the guild of tyranny [government dominion of absolute ability]. With them, nothing was "settled" that was not correct. With them, justice, liberty and humanity were "last;" not slavery and oppression. You may well cherish the retention of such men. They were great in their 24-hour interval and generation. Their solid manhood stands out the more than as we contrast it with these degenerate times.

…

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 try to practice when making a case. They put forth their arguments and abnegate those of their opponents. To win over an audience, they may appeal to their listeners' reason past laying out a logical case, or they may seek to win their trust by impressing them with sound sense or high moral character, or they may appeal to their emotions. We offer passages that illustrate all of these strategies.

19. What point of view does Douglass announce 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 speech. Identifying himself with the enslaved, he announces that he volition consider the 4th of July from their perspective.

35. Fellow-citizens; above 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 achieve them. If I practise forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, "may my correct mitt forget her cunning, and may my tongue carve to the roof of my mouth!" To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the pop theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world. My field of study, then fellow-citizens, is AMERICAN SLAVERY. I shall see, this twenty-four hour period, and its pop characteristics, from the slave's point of view. Continuing, there, identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I practise non hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and bear of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this Fourth of July! Whether we plough 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 simulated to the past, simulated to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the proper name of freedom which is fettered, in the proper noun of the constitution and the Bible, which are overlooked and trampled upon, cartel to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I tin can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery — the not bad sin and shame of America! "I will not equivocate; I volition not alibi;" I will utilise the severest language I can command; and notwithstanding not ane give-and-take shall escape me that any man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at eye a slaveholder, shall non confess to be right and just.

Paragraph 36

Activity: Douglass'south Utilize of Syllogistic Reasoning
In paragraph 36 Douglass uses logic to prove that slaves are human beings. Specifically, he employs a syllogism. This activity explores syllogistic reasoning and the way Douglass employs it.

36. Only I fancy I hear some one of my audience say, it is but in this circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to brand a favorable impression on the public heed. Would you lot argue more than, and denounce less, would you persuade more, and rebuke less, your cause would be much more than likely to succeed. But, I submit, where all is patently there is aught to exist argued. What signal in the anti-slavery creed would you have me debate? On what branch of the field of study do the people of this land demand light? Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? That bespeak is conceded already. Nobody doubts it. The slaveholders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their regime. They acknowledge it when they punish defiance on the part of the slave. There are seventy-two crimes in the State of Virginia, which, if committed past a black man, (no thing how ignorant he exist), subject him to the punishment of death; while only two of the same crimes will field of study a white human to the similar punishment. What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible being? The manhood of the slave is conceded. Information technology is admitted in the fact that Southern statute books are covered with enactments forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, the education of the slave to read or to write. When yous can point to whatever such laws, in reference to the beasts of the field, then I may consent to contend 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 sea, and the reptiles that clamber, shall be unable to distinguish the slave from a brute, then will I argue with you that the slave is a man!

Paragraph 37

20. How does paragraph 37 relate to paragraph 36?
Douglass continues to argue that slaves are men.

21. How does Douglass develop this paragraph?
He does so by listing examples of some of things slaves do that are done by others likewise: ploughing, planting, edifice, writing, raising children, etc.

37. For the nowadays, information technology is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. Is information technology not 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, atomic number 26, copper, silvery and gilt; that, while we are reading, writing and cyphering, acting as clerks, merchants and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators and teachers; that, while nosotros are engaged in all manner of enterprises common to other men, digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hill-side, living, moving, interim, thinking, planning, living in families equally 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 called upon to prove that we are men!

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Paragraph 39

22. How does Douglass maintain the order and coherence of the first sentence of this paragraph?
He employs parallelism, a type of organization in which a author places like ideas in a similar construction. 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 effect of the repetition of infinitive phrases ("to brand," "to rob," "to work," etc.) in the first sentence?
They plant a rhythm that emphasizes each indignity and heighten the emotional impact of the statement.

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 go along them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat 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 claret, and stained with pollution, is wrong? No! I will not. I have ameliorate employments for my time and force than such arguments would imply.

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

…

Paragraph 45

Activeness: The Emotional Appeal
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-merchandise, the American slave-trade, sustained by American politics and America religion. Here y'all will run across men and women reared similar swine for the market place. You know what is a swine-drover [herder]? I will prove you a man-drover. They inhabit all our Southern States. They perambulate the country, and crowd the highways of the nation, with droves of human stock. You will see one of these human mankind-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 nutrient for the cotton-field, and the deadly sugar-manufactory. Mark the sad procession, as information technology moves wearily along, and the inhuman wretch who drives them. Hear his savage yells and his blood-spooky oaths, equally he hurries on his affrighted captives! In that location, see the old homo, with locks thinned and gray. Cast one glance, if you lot delight, upon that young mother, whose shoulders are bare to the scorching sun, her briny tears falling on the brow of the babe in her artillery. See, too, that girl of thirteen, weeping, yes! weeping, as she thinks of the mother from whom she has been torn! The drove moves tardily. Rut and sorrow have nearly consumed their strength; of a sudden yous 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 have torn its way to the eye of your soul! The crack y'all heard, was the sound of the slave-whip; the scream yous heard, was from the woman you saw with the infant. Her speed had faltered under the weight of her child and her bondage! that gash on her shoulder tells her to move on. Follow the collection to New Orleans. Attend the sale; encounter men examined like horses; encounter 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, deplorable sobs that arose from that scattered multitude. Tell me citizens, WHERE, nether the sun, you lot can witness a spectacle more fiendish and shocking. Yet this is but a glance at the American slave-trade, every bit it exists, at this moment, in the ruling part of the The states.

Paragraphs 46–48

24. What strategy of argument does Douglass employ in this department of his spoken communication?
Hither Douglass established his ain moral authorisation to speak on the issue of slavery by citing his own experience, by establishing himself as reliable witness with first-manus data.

46. I was born amidst such sights and scenes. To me the American slave-merchandise is a terrible reality. When a kid, my soul was often pierced with a sense of its horrors. I lived on Philpot Street, Fell's Indicate, Baltimore, and have watched from the wharves, the slave ships in the Basin, anchored from the shore, with their cargoes of man mankind, waiting for favorable winds to waft them down the Chesapeake. In that location was, at that time, a grand slave mart kept at the caput of Pratt Street, by Austin Woldfolk. His agents were sent into every boondocks and canton in Maryland, announcing their arrival, through the papers, and on flaming "manus-bills," headed Cash FOR NEGROES. These men were generally well dressed men, and very captivating in their manners. Always gear up to drink, to care for, and to take a chance. The fate of many a slave has depended upon the turn of a single menu; and many a child has been snatched from the arms of its mother past bargains arranged in a state of roughshod drunkenness.

47. The flesh-mongers gather up their victims by dozens, and drive them, chained, to the general depot at Baltimore. When a sufficient number take been collected here, a transport is chartered, for the purpose of conveying the forlorn crew to Mobile, or to New Orleans. From the slave prison to the send, they are ordinarily driven in the darkness of dark; for since the antislavery agitation, a certain 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 boyish heart 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 heart-rending cries. I was glad to find 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 spoken language?
Hither Douglass offers the strongest analogy of the ways in which America is false to the ideals it has set for itself.

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

27. How does Douglass'due south judgement construction reverberate the thesis of the paragraph?
Of the xi sentences in this paragraph, ten showroom a parallel chemical compound structure in which the first clause identifies an ideal and the following clause refutes America's claim to information technology. Each sentence begins with a slightly accusatory "you" and and then pivots at a conjunction or a give-and-take functioning as i — "while," "but," "even so" — that suggests contradiction.

63. Americans! your republican politics, not less than your republican faith, are flagrantly inconsistent. You boast of your beloved of freedom, your superior culture, and your pure Christianity, while the whole political power of the nation (equally embodied in the two dandy political parties), is solemnly pledged to support and perpetuate the enslavement of 3 millions of your countrymen. Yous hurl your anathemas at the crowned headed tyrants of Russia and Republic of austria, and pride yourselves on your Democratic institutions, while you yourselves consent to be the mere tools and bodyguards of the tyrants of Virginia and Carolina. You invite to your shores fugitives of oppression from away, laurels them with banquets, greet them with ovations, cheer them, toast them, salute them, protect them, and pour out your money to them like h2o; only the fugitives from your ain land you lot advertise, hunt, arrest, shoot and kill. You lot glory in your refinement and your universal education yet you maintain a system as roughshod and dreadful as ever stained the grapheme of a nation — a system begun in forehandedness, supported in pride, and perpetuated in cruelty. You shed tears over fallen Hungary, and make the distressing story of her wrongs the theme of your poets, statesmen and orators, till your gallant sons are set to fly to arms to vindicate her [Hungary's] cause 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 lot are all on fire at the mention of liberty for French republic or for Ireland; but are equally cold as an iceberg at the idea of liberty for the enslaved of America. You discourse eloquently on the dignity of labor; yet, you lot sustain a system which, in its very essence, casts a stigma upon labor. You tin bare your bosom to the tempest of British artillery to throw off a threepenny revenue enhancement on tea; and yet wring the last difficult-earned farthing [a coin formerly used in Swell Uk] from the grasp of the black laborers of your country. You profess to believe "that, of one claret, God made all nations of men to dwell on the face of all the world," and hath commanded all men, everywhere to beloved 1 another; yet you notoriously detest, (and glory in your hatred), all men whose skins are non colored like your own. You declare, before the world, and are understood past the world to declare, that you "hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal; and are endowed past their Creator with certain inalienable rights; and that, among these are, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;" and still, y'all hold deeply, 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 7th part of the inhabitants of your land.

…

Paragraph 68

Activity: Argument By Analogy
In paragraph 68, Douglass introduces another tool of persuasion, argument by illustration, which is explored in this action.

Note: This paragraph is an important part of Douglass's refutatio and as such deserves careful attention. Not only does he address a powerful justification for the continuation of slavery — the belief that it is protected past the Constitution — but he also asserts a controversial theory about Ramble interpretation.

68. Fellow-citizens! there is no matter in respect to which, the people of the Northward have allowed themselves to be so ruinously imposed upon, equally that of the pro-slavery character of the Constitution. In that instrument I hold in that location is neither warrant, license, nor sanction of the hateful affair; but, interpreted as it ought to be interpreted, the Constitution is a GLORIOUS Freedom DOCUMENT. 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 practice not intend to debate this question on the present occasion, let me enquire, if it be non somewhat singular that, if the Constitution were intended to be, by its framers and adopters, a slave-holding instrument, why neither slavery, slaveholding, nor slave can anywhere be establish in it. What would exist idea of an instrument [legal understanding, in this example a act], drawn upward, legally fatigued up, for the purpose of entitling [giving buying to] the urban center of Rochester to a tract [piece] of state, in which no mention of land was fabricated? Now, in that location are certain rules of interpretation, for the proper understanding of all legal instruments. These rules are well established. They are plain, common-sense rules, such equally you and I, and all of us, can sympathize and utilize, without having passed years in the written report of law. I scout the idea that the question of the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of slavery is not a question for the people. I hold that every American denizen has a right to form an opinion of the Constitution, and to propagate that opinion, and to use all honorable means to brand his opinion the prevailing one. Without this correct, the liberty of an American citizen would be every bit insecure equally that of a Frenchman. Ex-Vice-President Dallas tells us that the Constitution is an object to which no American mind tin exist besides circumspect, and no American heart as well devoted. He further says, the Constitution, in its words, is patently and intelligible, and is meant for the dwelling house-bred, unsophisticated understandings of our fellow-citizens. Senator Berrien tells us that the Constitution is the key law, that which controls all others. The charter of our liberties, which every denizen has a personal involvement in understanding thoroughly. The testimony of Senator Breese, Lewis Cass, and many others that might be named, who are everywhere esteemed as sound lawyers, and then regard the Constitution. I accept it, therefore, that it is not presumption in a private citizen to form an opinion of that instrument.

…

Conclusion ('Peroratio'): Paragraph 71

Paragraph 71

Note: Conclusions are of import. Inquire your students how they office and what they should practise. The terminal words an audience hears, they often linger and shape the impression of an entire oral communication. Traditionally, speakers utilise them to practise four things: exit the audience with a favorable opinion, emphasize primal points, stimulate an advisable emotional response, or summarize the argument. Douglass does not emphasize key points or recapitulate his arguments. Rather, he seeks to cast his case for abolitionism in a favorable light and instill promise in his listeners.

28. What are conclusions supposed to do?
Traditionally, four things: leave the audience with a favorable stance, emphasize central points, stimulate an appropriate emotional response, or summarize the argument.

29. Why is it important for Douglass to tell his listeners that he does "not despair of this state"?
Even though he has merely delivered a dark and stinging denunciation of the country, he does not want his listeners to leave the hall feeling depressed and hopeless.

thirty. On what does Douglass base the hope he expresses in this paragraph?
He looks to the past and the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence. For Douglass those ethics, if the nation can live upwards to them, make the The states, despite its flaws, a place of hope and hope for the enslaved. He as well looks to the future in which he believes commercial and technological progress — ships using steam to make a "pathway" over the sea and telegraph cables using "lightning" (electricity) to do the same nether it — will spread intelligence, enlightenment, and moral progress throughout the earth.

71. Allow me to say, in decision, notwithstanding the dark moving picture I accept this day presented of the state of the nation, I do non despair of this land. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably piece of work the downfall of slavery. "The arm of the Lord is not shortened," and the doom of slavery is certain. I, therefore, exit off where I began, with hope. While cartoon encouragement from the Declaration of Independence, the great principles it contains, and the genius of American Institutions, my spirit is likewise cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age. Nations do non now stand in the same relation to each other that they did ages agone. No nation can now shut itself up from the surrounding world, and trot round in the same former path of its fathers without interference. The time was when such could be done. Long established customs of hurtful character could formerly fence themselves in, and practise their evil piece of work with social impunity. Cognition was then bars and enjoyed past the privileged few, and the multitude walked on in mental darkness. But a change has now come over the affairs of flesh. Walled cities and empires have go unfashionable. The arm of commerce has borne abroad the gates of the strong urban center. Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe. It makes its pathway over and under the sea, too as on the globe. Wind, steam, and lightning are its chartered agents. Oceans no longer split up, but link nations together. From Boston to London is at present a holiday excursion. Infinite is insufficiently annihilated. Thoughts expressed on one side of the Atlantic are distinctly heard on the other. The far-off and near fabulous Pacific rolls in grandeur at our feet. The Celestial Empire, the mystery of ages, is existence solved. The fiat of the Almighty, "Let there be Light," has non yet spent its force. No abuse, no outrage whether in taste, sport or avarice, tin now hide itself from the all-pervading light. The iron shoe, and bedridden pes of China must be seen, in contrast with nature. Africa must rising and put on her yet unwoven garment. "Federal democratic republic of 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 it:

God speed the year of jubilee
The wide world o'er!
When from their galling chains set complimentary,
Thursday' oppressed shall vilely curve the knee,
And wear the yoke of tyranny
Similar brutes, no more:—
That year volition come up, and Freedom'southward reign,
To homo his plundered rights over again
Restore.

God speed the day when human blood
Shall cease to flow!
In every clime be understood,
The claims of human brotherhood,
And each return for evil, good—
Not blow for blow:—
That 24-hour interval volition come, all feuds to end,
And change into a faithful friend
Each foe.

God speed the 60 minutes, the glorious hour,
When none on earth
Shall exercise a lordly power,
Nor in a tyrant's presence cower;
Just all to Manhood'southward stature tower,
By equal birth!—
That hour will come, to each, to all,
And from his prison house-house the thrall
Go forth.

Until that year, day, hr make it,
With head and centre and hand I'll strive,
To break the rod, and rend the gyve,—
The spoiler of his prey deprive,―
Then witness Sky!
And never from my chosen post,
Whate'er the peril or the cost,
Be driven.

---

Prototype: Daguerreotype of Frederick Douglass, ca. 1855 (creator unknown). Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Rubel Collection, Fractional 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/#:~:text=In%20%E2%80%9CWhat%20to%20the%20Slave,1855%2C%20Metropolitan%20Museum%20of%20Art.

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