What Does Douglass Infer From These Changes

Advisor: James Engell, Gurney Professor of English and Professor of Comparative Literature, Harvard University, National Humanities Center Fellow.
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?

Understanding

In the 1850s abolition was not a widely embraced movement in the United States. It was considered radical, farthermost, and dangerous. In "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" Frederick Douglass sought non just to convince people of the wrongfulness of slavery merely also to make abolition more than acceptable 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 Complication

Grades 11-CCR complexity band.
For more data on text complexity come across these resources from achievethecore.org.

Text Type

Spoken language, historical, advisory.

Click here for standards and skills for this lesson.

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Mutual Core State Standards

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

Advanced Placement U.s. History

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

Avant-garde Placement Language and Composition

• Developing…the power to evaluate…primary…sources
• Reading nonfiction…to requite students opportunities to identify and explain an writer'south use of rhetorical strategies and techniques

Teacher's Notation

In add-on to making historical points most nineteenth-century attitudes toward slavery, race, and abolitionism, you tin use this speech to teach formal rhetoric. Nosotros have divided the accost into four sections according to the role of each one. This division follows the classic structure of argumentative writing:

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

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

This lesson features 5 interactive activities, which can be accessed by clicking on this icon . The commencement explores the subtle way in which Douglass compares the patriots of 1776 with the abolitionists of 1852. The 2d challenges students to determine how Douglass supports his thesis. The third focuses on his employ of syllogistic reasoning, while the fourth examines how he makes his case through emotion and the fifth through illustration.

We recommend assigning the entire text . For close reading we accept analyzed 18 of the speech'southward lxx-one paragraphs through fine-grained questions, almost 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 Assay" section. The classroom version , a printable worksheet for apply with students, omits those responses and this "Teaching the Text" note. Terms that announced 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. Nosotros recommend dividing students into groups and assigning each group 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 information technology written?

At the invitation of the Rochester Ladies Anti-Slavery Society, Frederick Douglass delivered this speech on July 5, 1852, at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York. It was reported and reprinted in Northern newspapers and was published and sold as a twoscore-page pamphlet inside weeks of its delivery. The 500 to 600 people who heard Douglass speak were generally sympathetic to his remarks. A newspaper noted that when he sat down, "there was a universal outburst of applause." Nonetheless, many who read his speech would non have been so enthusiastic. Fifty-fifty Northerners who were anti-slavery were not necessarily pro-abolition. Many were content to let Southerners continue to concur slaves, a right they believed was upheld past the Constitution. They simply did not want to slavery to spread to areas where it did non exist. In this Independence Day oration, Douglass sought to persuade those people to embrace what was then considered the extreme position of abolition.

He also sought to alter minds about the abilities and intelligence of African Americans. In 1852 many, if non most, white Americans believed that African Americans were junior, indeed, less than fully man. Douglass tries to dispel these notions through an impressive display of liberal learning. His spoken language gives aplenty evidence of cognition of rhetoric, history, literature, faith, economics, verse, music, law, even advances in engineering science.

Text Analysis

Introduction ('Exordium'): Paragraphs one–3

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'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 audition.

2. What does Douglass try to do in this introduction? Cite show from the text to support your answer.
Because his audience is familiar with the field of study thing of Fourth of July speeches and considering information technology recognizes the importance of the occasion, in his introduction Douglass does not accept 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 "express powers of speech." His ease is apparent, non real.

three. Why does he say that "apologies of this sort are more often than not considered flat and unmeaning"?
He calls attention to the rhetorical conventions of introductions to point to his audience that in this example they do not employ. 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 "flat"?
Here the word "flat" is used to mean dull or superficial. Using the context nosotros can meet that Douglass intends the connotation of the word "apartment" non to be level just instead to hateful something that lacks depth or emotion behind it.

5. Why would it exist "out of the mutual mode" for him to deliver a 4th of July oration?
As he reminds his audience in the terminal paragraph of the introduction, he is an escaped slave. By calling attending to the fact that a slave has been invited to speak on freedom, he employs irony, a strategy he will utilise throughout the speech to emphasize certain themes.

half dozen. There are contradictions in Douglass's cocky-presentation. What are they? Cite specific instances of them in the text. How tin you lot business relationship for them?
In the first paragraph not but does Douglass describe his "powers of speech" equally "limited," simply he also maintains that he has "limited experience" in exercising them, which he claims to have done chiefly in "land school houses." Nevertheless in the next paragraph he says that he has spoken in Corinthian Hall many times to many of the same people sitting before him now. 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 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." Yet he deploys the term "exordium," which contradicts the little-learning claim past revealing a study-acquired vocabulary and a knowledge of formal rhetoric.

7. What expectations do you lot think a white audition would accept for a blackness speaker in 1852? How does Douglass address these expectations in his introduction?
In this introduction Douglass is doing more than than simply 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. Even among some abolitionists at that place existed the strong prejudice that African Americans were inferior, indeed, something less than fully man. Douglass'southward entire speech is designed to do dispel that belief. In his introduction he begins to do so with that subtle flash of learning revealed in his employ 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 beyond the capacities of an inferior being.

1. Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has stronger nerves than I have. I do not think ever to accept appeared as a speaker before whatsoever assembly more shrinkingly, nor with greater distrust of my ability, than I exercise this day. A feeling has crept over me, quite unfavorable to the do of my limited powers of speech. The task before me is one which requires much previous idea and written report for its proper performance. I know that apologies of this sort are more often than not considered flat and unmeaning. I trust, yet, that mine will not be and then considered. Should I seem at ease, my appearance would much misrepresent me. The little experience I have had in addressing public meetings, in land schoolhouses, avails me nothing on the nowadays 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 have often had the privilege to speak in this beautiful Hall, and to address many who at present honor me with their presence. Just neither their familiar faces, nor the perfect gage I think I have of Corinthian Hall, seems to free me from embarrassment.

3. 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 means slight. That I am here today is, to me, a matter of astonishment too as of gratitude. Y'all will not, therefore, be surprised, if in what I take to say, I evince no elaborate training, nor grace my speech communication with whatever high sounding exordium. With little feel 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.

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

Paragraph 4

Notation: Students are likely to exist familiar with the office of an introduction in a spoken language merely less then with the part of the narrative section. Y'all might explicate that in an address commemorating an effect, speakers often invoke the upshot past offering a narration of it. This reminds the audience why they are gathered together, and information technology offers speakers the opportunity to draw inspiration for the future from the event. Douglass'southward narration clearly performs the first function and, as we shall encounter, the 2nd every bit well. But it too performs two other of import functions. Looking dorsum on America'southward revolutionary by, the narration, through unsaid comparison, condemns America's slave-holding present. Moreover, information technology enshrines radical resistance to government policy and revolution in the face of chains as 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 every bit "plotters of mischief, agitators…rebels, dangerous men."

viii. What is the effect of Douglass'due south repetition of the words "your" and "yous" in this paragraph and throughout the speech?
The repetition of the words "your" and "you" startlingly emphasizes the distance between Douglass and his audience and signals to his listeners that he does not share their perspective or their attitudes toward the 4th of July.

ix. Why does Douglass feel hopeful about America'south futurity? Cite evidence from the text to support your reply.
He takes hope from the fact that the state is immature, simply seventy-half-dozen years quondam. Its destiny and character are not fixed. Thus it may yet change and abandon slavery.

10. What is he suggesting in the "slap-up streams" metaphor?
If America permits slavery to get a deep and permanent role of its life, the nation might benefit from information technology, or it might be destroyed by it, or it could be morally drained past it. In the cease the metaphor is a alarm nigh what might happen if change does not happen soon.

11. In the judgement "Were the nation older, the patriot's heart might be sadder, and the reformer'due south brow heavier," why does Douglass equate the patriot and the reformer? Why would both groups be sadder if the nation were older?
In this function of his speech Douglass takes pains to equate the founding patriots with contemporary anti-slavery reformers. He begins to make that equation here. The nation, Douglass tells his audience, is however young, non prepare in its fashion, and thus more than susceptible to alter. Past inference, were it older, it would exist more than set in its ways, and the reformer who would want to change those ways, would exist sad. But why would a patriot exist sad? From Douglass's perspective, he would be sad for the same reason. In Douglass's 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 it, America would betray the ideals of the Revolution, and thus the patriot would be sad.

four. This, for the purpose of this celebration, is the 4th of July. It is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. This, to you lot, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. It carries your minds back to the day, and to the human action of your great deliverance; and to the signs, and to the wonders, associated with that act, and that solar day. This celebration besides marks the start of another yr of your national life; and reminds you lot that the Republic of America is now 76 years old. I am glad, swain-citizens, that your nation is and then immature. 70-half dozen years, though a skilful old age for a human being, is but a mere speck in the life of a nation. Iii score years and ten is the allotted fourth dimension for individual men; but nations number their years by thousands. According to this fact, you are, fifty-fifty at present, simply in the beginning of your national career, still lingering in the catamenia of childhood. I echo, I am glad this is then. At that place is hope in the idea, and hope is much needed, under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon. The eye of the reformer is met with angry flashes, portending disastrous times; only his heart may well beat lighter at the idea that America is immature, and that she [America] is notwithstanding in the impressible stage of her existence. May he not hope that loftier lessons of wisdom, of justice and of truth, will yet give direction to her destiny? Were the nation older, the patriot's heart might exist sadder, and the reformer's brow heavier. Its future might be shrouded in gloom, and the promise of its prophets go out in sorrow. There is consolation in the thought that America is young. Corking streams are not easily turned from channels, worn deep in the class of ages. They may sometimes rise in quiet and stately majesty, and inundate the state, refreshing and fertilizing the earth with their mysterious properties. They may as well rise in wrath and fury, and bear away, on their angry waves, the accumulated wealth of years of toil and hardship. They, however, gradually flow back to the same old aqueduct, and menses on as serenely as always. Simply, while the river may not exist turned aside, it may dry upward, and leave zip behind only the withered branch, and the cruddy rock, to howl in the abyss-sweeping air current, the sad tale of departed celebrity. As with rivers then with nations.

…

Paragraph six

12. According to Douglass, what did the "fathers" exercise? Cite specific language from the text.
They rejected "the infallibility of government," "pronounced the measures of regime unjust, unreasonable, and oppressive," and sided with "the right confronting the incorrect, with the weak confronting the strong, and with the oppressed confronting the oppressor."

13. Why does Douglass affirm his agreement with the actions of the "fathers"?
Douglass asserts his agreement with the actions of founders and embraces the principles of the Revolution to create a bond with his audience and to reassure them that, to some caste at least, he participates in the American political tradition.

6. But, your fathers, who had not adopted the stylish idea of this day, of the infallibility of government, and the absolute character of its acts, presumed to differ from the dwelling government in respect to the wisdom and the justice of some of those burdens and restraints. They went then far in their excitement as to pronounce the measures of regime unjust, unreasonable, and oppressive, and altogether such every bit ought non to be quietly submitted to. I scarcely need say, fellow-citizens, that my opinion of those measures fully accords with that of your fathers. Such a declaration of agreement on my part would non exist worth much to anybody. Information technology would, certainly, prove nothing, every bit to what part I might accept taken, had I lived during the nifty controversy of 1776. To say now that America was correct, and England wrong, is exceedingly easy. Everybody can say it; the dastard, not less than the noble dauntless, tin flippantly discant on the tyranny of England towards the American Colonies. Information technology is fashionable to do so; but there was a time when to pronounce against England, and in favor of the cause of the colonies, tried men's souls. They who did then were accounted in their 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! here lies the merit, and the one which, of all others, seems unfashionable in our day. The cause of liberty may be stabbed past the men who celebrity in the deeds of your fathers. Just, to go along.

…

Paragraph 23

14. How would you 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, but they preferred revolution….".

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

sixteen. What inference does Douglass want his audition to draw from his portrayal of the founders?
Since he established an identification betwixt the founders and the abolitionists in paragraphs 4 and 6, the temperate qualities he ascribes hither to the one-time utilize 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 brand their points as much by leaving things out every bit by 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 do and then?
Douglass never mentions the fact that many of the fathers were slave owners. This silence allows Douglass to create his ain version of the fathers, untainted past facts that would challenge his portrayal. Similarly, they deflect the minds of his listeners from points that might atomic number 82 them to resist his argument.

18. Do you lot think Douglass's omission weakens his argument?
Hither y'all might encourage a contend among your students. Some will say the omission weakens Douglass's argument because it straightforwardly refutes his case. How tin can he say that the "fathers" sided "with the oppressed confronting the oppressor" when many of them were themselves oppressors? Other students may argue that this omission does non weaken his case. Despite existence slaveholders, men like Washington and Jefferson did, in fact, establish a nation congenital on the ideals of justice and freedom. That many of the founders did not alive up to those ideals does not brand them whatsoever less compelling. Equally Douglass says in paragraphs sixteen and seventeen (paragraphs we do not clarify 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 role of the spoken communication Douglass argues that just because the "fathers" did non fully embrace justice and liberty in 1776 does not hateful that his listeners should not in 1852.

23. They were peace men; just they preferred revolution to peaceful submission to chains. They were tranquillity men; but they did not shrink from agitating confronting oppression. They showed forbearance; but they knew its limits. They believed in society; but not in the society of tyranny [government rule of absolute ability]. With them, nothing was "settled" that was non right. With them, justice, liberty and humanity were "final;" not slavery and oppression. You may well cherish the retentiveness of such men. They were great in their 24-hour interval and generation. Their solid manhood stands out the more than every bit nosotros contrast it with these degenerate times.

…

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

Paragraph 35

Note: Arguments and counter-arguments lie at the heart of persuasive discourse. Review with your students what speakers and writers try to practice when making a case. They put along their arguments and refute those of their opponents. To win over an audience, they may appeal to their listeners' reason by laying out a logical instance, 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. Nosotros offer passages that illustrate all of these strategies.

nineteen. What point of view does Douglass announce in this paragraph?
In paragraph iii Douglass alluded to the fact that he had been a slave. In this paragraph his listeners discover 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. Swain-citizens; above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! whose bondage, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, today, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that accomplish them. If I do forget, if I practice not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, "may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my natural language carve to the roof of my mouth!" To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chinkle in with the pop theme, would be treason nearly scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world. My discipline, then fellow-citizens, is AMERICAN SLAVERY. I shall see, this day, and its popular characteristics, from the slave'due south betoken of view. Continuing, at that place, identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do non hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the grapheme and comport 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 by, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to exist false to the hereafter. 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 noun of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the accent I tin control, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery — the great sin and shame of America! "I will not equivocate; I will not excuse;" I will apply the severest language I tin command; and yet not one word shall escape me that whatsoever homo, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at center a slaveholder, shall non confess to be right and merely.

Paragraph 36

Activity: Douglass's Employ of Syllogistic Reasoning
In paragraph 36 Douglass uses logic to evidence 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 1 of my audition say, it is only in this circumstance that y'all and your blood brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind. Would you argue more than, and denounce less, would you lot persuade more than, and rebuke less, your crusade would exist much more likely to succeed. But, I submit, where all is apparently there is zip to be argued. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me debate? On what branch of the field of study do the people of this country demand light? Must I undertake to evidence 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 defiance on the role of the slave. At that place are 70-two crimes in the Land of Virginia, which, if committed by a black man, (no matter how ignorant he be), subject him to the penalty of death; while only two of the same crimes will subject a white man to the like punishment. What is this simply the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible beingness? The manhood of the slave is conceded. It is admitted in the fact that Southern statute books are covered with enactments forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, the instruction of the slave to read or to write. When y'all can signal to whatever 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 sea, and the reptiles that clamber, shall be unable to distinguish the slave from a brute, then will I argue with y'all that the slave is a man!

Paragraph 37

twenty. How does paragraph 37 relate to paragraph 36?
Douglass continues to fence that slaves are men.

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

37. For the nowadays, it is plenty to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. Is it not astonishing that, while nosotros are ploughing, planting and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, silver and gold; that, while nosotros 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 style of enterprises common to other men, excavation gold 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, we are called upon to prove that we are men!

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Paragraph 39

22. How does Douglass maintain the social club and coherence of the first sentence of this paragraph?
He employs parallelism, a type of organisation in which a writer places similar ideas in a similar construction. Hither 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 first sentence?
They establish a rhythm that emphasizes each indignity and raise the emotional touch on of the argument.

39. What, am I to argue that information technology is incorrect to brand men brutes, to rob them of their freedom, 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 chase them with dogs, to sell them at sale, 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 debate that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, is wrong? No! I will non. I have better employments for my fourth dimension and strength than such arguments would imply.

forty. What, then, remains to be argued? Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not found it; that our doctors of divinity [preachers, ministers] are mistaken? At that place 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 fourth dimension for such argument is by.

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Paragraph 45

Activity: The Emotional Appeal
In paragraph 45 Douglass argues from emotion. This activity explores the emotional appeal and how Douglass employs information technology.

45. Behold the practical operation of this internal slave-trade, the American slave-trade, sustained by American politics and America organized religion. Here you volition see men and women reared like swine for the market place. You know what is a swine-drover [herder]? I will bear witness you a human-drover. They inhabit all our Southern States. They perambulate the land, and crowd the highways of the nation, with droves of man stock. You volition encounter i of these human flesh-jobbers [flesh-sellers], armed with pistol, whip and bowie-knife, driving a visitor 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-mill. Mark the deplorable procession, as it moves wearily along, and the inhuman wretch who drives them. Hear his savage yells and his claret-chilling oaths, every bit he hurries on his abashed captives! At that place, see the old man, with locks thinned and greyness. Cast one glance, if you please, upon that young mother, whose shoulders are blank to the scorching sun, her briny tears falling on the brow of the babe in her arms. See, also, that girl of 13, weeping, yes! weeping, as she thinks of the mother from whom she has been torn! The drove moves belatedly. Heat and sorrow have nearly consumed their forcefulness; suddenly you lot hear a quick snap, similar 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 center of your soul! The crack you heard, was the sound of the slave-whip; the scream you 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 collection to New Orleans. Attend the auction; see men examined like horses; see the forms of women rudely and brutally exposed to the shocking gaze of American slave-buyers. See this collection sold and separated forever; and never forget the deep, pitiful sobs that arose from that scattered multitude. Tell me citizens, WHERE, under the dominicus, you can witness a spectacle more fiendish and shocking. Yet this is simply a glance at the American slave-trade, as it exists, at this moment, in the ruling part of the U.s..

Paragraphs 46–48

24. What strategy of argument does Douglass employ in this section of his speech?
Here Douglass established his own moral authority to speak on the issue of slavery by citing his own experience, by establishing himself as reliable witness with first-manus information.

46. I was born amid 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 take watched from the wharves, the slave ships in the Basin, anchored from the shore, with their cargoes of human mankind, 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 "mitt-bills," headed Cash FOR NEGROES. These men were generally well dressed men, and very captivating in their manners. Always set up to drink, to treat, and to gamble. 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 female parent by bargains bundled in a state of brutal 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 hither, a transport is chartered, for the purpose of conveying the forlorn crew to Mobile, or to New Orleans. From the slave prison house to the send, they are usually driven in the darkness of dark; for since the antislavery agitation, a certain circumspection is observed.

48. In the deep still darkness of midnight, I have been ofttimes aroused past the dead heavy footsteps, and the piteous cries of the chained gangs that passed our door. The ache of my boyish eye was intense; and I was often consoled, when speaking to my mistress in the morning time, to hear her say that the custom was very wicked; that she hated to hear the rattle of the bondage, and the eye-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 speech?
Hither Douglass offers the strongest illustration of the means in which America is false to the ideals it has ready for itself.

26. What is the thesis of this paragraph?
The means in which Americans practice their politics and religion are inconsistent with the values and ethics they merits to be following.

27. How does Douglass'southward sentence structure reflect the thesis of the paragraph?
Of the eleven sentences in this paragraph, ten exhibit a parallel compound structure in which the first clause identifies an platonic and the following clause refutes America'south claim to it. Each sentence begins with a slightly accusatory "y'all" and then pivots at a conjunction or a word functioning as one — "while," "only," "withal" — that suggests contradiction.

63. Americans! your republican politics, non less than your republican organized religion, are flagrantly inconsistent. Yous 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 iii millions of your countrymen. You lot hurl your anathemas at the crowned headed tyrants of Russian federation and Austria, and pride yourselves on your Autonomous institutions, while you yourselves consent to be the mere tools and bodyguards of the tyrants of Virginia and Carolina. Yous invite to your shores fugitives of oppression from abroad, 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 lot glory in your refinement and your universal instruction nevertheless you maintain a system as roughshod and dreadful every bit ever stained the character of a nation — a system begun in forehandedness, supported in pride, and perpetuated in cruelty. You shed tears over fallen Hungary, and make the lamentable 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's] cause confronting her oppressors; but, in regard to the 10 1000 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 bailiwick of public discourse! Y'all are all on fire at the mention of liberty for France or for Ireland; but are as cold every bit an iceberg at the thought of freedom for the enslaved of America. You discourse eloquently on the dignity of labor; yet, y'all sustain a arrangement which, in its very essence, casts a stigma upon labor. You can bare your bosom to the storm of British artillery to throw off a threepenny taxation on tea; and yet wring the last hard-earned farthing [a coin formerly used in Swell Uk] from the grasp of the blackness laborers of your country. You profess to believe "that, of one blood, God made all nations of men to dwell on the face of all the globe," and hath commanded all men, everywhere to love one another; yet y'all notoriously hate, (and celebrity in your hatred), all men whose skins are not colored like your own. Y'all declare, before the world, and are understood past the earth to declare, that you "agree these truths to be self evident, 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 yet, y'all hold 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 7th part of the inhabitants of your state.

…

Paragraph 68

Activity: Statement By Analogy
In paragraph 68, Douglass introduces another tool of persuasion, argument by analogy, which is explored in this activity.

Note: This paragraph is an important office of Douglass's refutatio and as such deserves careful attending. Not merely does he address a powerful justification for the continuation of slavery — the belief that it is protected past the Constitution — but he too asserts a controversial theory near Constitutional 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, as that of the pro-slavery grapheme of the Constitution. In that instrument I hold there is neither warrant, license, nor sanction of the hateful matter; but, interpreted as it ought to be interpreted, the Constitution is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY Certificate. Read its preamble, consider its purposes. Is slavery amidst them? Is information technology at the gateway [the preamble]? or is it in the temple [the trunk of the Constitution]? It is neither. While I do not intend to argue this question on the present occasion, let me ask, if it be not somewhat singular that, if the Constitution were intended to exist, by its framers and adopters, a slave-property instrument, why neither slavery, slaveholding, nor slave tin can anywhere be plant in information technology. What would be thought of an instrument [legal understanding, in this example a deed], drawn upwards, legally drawn up, for the purpose of entitling [giving ownership to] the city of Rochester to a tract [piece] of state, in which no mention of state was fabricated? Now, at that place are certain rules of estimation, for the proper agreement of all legal instruments. These rules are well established. They are plain, mutual-sense rules, such as you and I, and all of us, tin can sympathize and apply, without having passed years in the written report of police. I sentry 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 correct to form an opinion of the Constitution, and to propagate that opinion, and to use all honorable means to make his opinion the prevailing one. Without this right, the liberty of an American citizen would exist as insecure as that of a Frenchman. Ex-Vice-President Dallas tells united states of america that the Constitution is an object to which no American mind tin can be too attentive, and no American heart too devoted. He further says, the Constitution, in its words, is plain and intelligible, and is meant for the home-bred, unsophisticated understandings of our fellow-citizens. Senator Berrien tells us that the Constitution is the fundamental constabulary, that which controls all others. The charter of our liberties, which every citizen has a personal involvement in agreement thoroughly. The testimony of Senator Breese, Lewis Cass, and many others that might exist named, who are everywhere esteemed equally sound lawyers, so regard the Constitution. I take it, therefore, that it is not presumption in a individual denizen to form an opinion of that instrument.

…

Conclusion ('Peroratio'): Paragraph 71

Paragraph 71

Note: Conclusions are important. Ask your students how they function and what they should do. The concluding words an audience hears, they often linger and shape the impression of an entire speech. Traditionally, speakers use them to do 4 things: exit the audience with a favorable opinion, emphasize key points, stimulate an appropriate emotional response, or summarize the argument. Douglass does not emphasize fundamental 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 exercise?
Traditionally, four things: leave the audience with a favorable opinion, emphasize key points, stimulate an appropriate emotional response, or summarize the argument.

29. Why is it important for Douglass to tell his listeners that he does "non despair of this country"?
Even though he has just delivered a dark and stinging denunciation of the country, he does non want his listeners to get out the hall feeling depressed and hopeless.

30. On what does Douglass base of operations the hope he expresses in this paragraph?
He looks to the past and the ideals expressed in the Declaration 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 future in which he believes commercial and technological progress — ships using steam to brand a "pathway" over the sea and telegraph cables using "lightning" (electricity) to do the same under it — will spread intelligence, enlightenment, and moral progress throughout the globe.

71. Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark flick I have this day presented of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this state. At that place 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 sure. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. While drawing encouragement from the Declaration of Independence, the great principles it contains, and the genius of American Institutions, my spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age. Nations practise non now stand in the same relation to each other that they did ages ago. No nation can now shut itself upward from the surrounding world, and trot round in the same sometime path of its fathers without interference. The time was when such could be done. Long established customs of hurtful character could formerly argue themselves in, and do their evil work with social impunity. Noesis was so confined and enjoyed by the privileged few, and the multitude walked on in mental darkness. Simply a change has now come over the affairs of flesh. Walled cities and empires have become unfashionable. The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the potent city. Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe. It makes its pathway over and under the body of water, likewise as on the earth. Air current, steam, and lightning are its chartered agents. Oceans no longer divide, only link nations together. From Boston to London is at present a holiday excursion. Space is insufficiently annihilated. Thoughts expressed on 1 side of the Atlantic are distinctly heard on the other. The far-off and well-nigh fabulous Pacific rolls in grandeur at our feet. The Angelic Empire, the mystery of ages, is existence solved. The fiat of the Almighty, "Let there exist Calorie-free," has not yet spent its force. No corruption, no outrage whether in taste, sport or avarice, can now hide itself from the all-pervading light. The iron shoe, and bedridden foot of China must be seen, in contrast with nature. Africa must ascension 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 permit every heart bring together in proverb 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 article of clothing the yoke of tyranny
Like brutes, no more than:—
That yr volition come, and Freedom's reign,
To homo his plundered rights again
Restore.

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

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

Until that year, day, hour arrive,
With head and heart and hand I'll strive,
To break the rod, and rend the gyve,—
The spoiler of his prey deprive,―
So witness Heaven!
And never from my chosen post,
Whate'er the peril or the cost,
Exist driven.

---

Prototype: 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 past permission.

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

Posted by: poguefaciet.blogspot.com

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