f. douglass - slaves && fourth of july

Douglass was asked to talk in front of a group of abolitionists about the fourth of July. He generally uses the "Declaration of Independence" as a back support when talking about how he feels about the fourth of July. Douglass was saying that although the "Declaration of Independence" was written by good men, it didn`t really support him and the people like him, meaning the black slaves. I know that he is saying that is it written by good men because he says “The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. They were great men…”. “This Fourth July is yours, not mine” (Douglass), I think he saying that the fourth of July really doesn`t share freedom with all the men because the slaves were still being slaves and having to do what the whites wanted them to do. Therefore, it really didn`t mean much to him since the “all men are created equal” part of the Declaration was just talking about the white men but was said in different words. It was said that all “men”, meaning that the actual “men” were just the whites and that the slaves weren`t real men, they were JUST slaves and nothing else. Douglass says that the slaves shouldn`t be accounted as men because they can do anything that any other man can do. Referring to what the whites believed, Douglass thought of the man and freedom situation like this: man = freedom, slave = man, then slave = freedom.

Douglass appeals to pathos, ethos, and logos in order to pull the audience to his side of the argument. When to comes to ethos, he appeals to ethos by have the credibility. He is able to express his side of the opinion with back up since he is a slave and a black man himself and is being fair by saying yes the writers of the Declaration are good men, but.... Appealing to logos is when Douglass supports his claims by examples. When he says that a slave can do what a man can do, he is saying that slaves are no different and he backs this up by being a black male slave himself and he is able to escape on his own and set up his own freedom. He can be strong and do things for himself like any other man. Douglass appeals to pathos. He does this by showing some sense of emotion. He has this type of “are you serious?” or “seriously?” type of thing going on, which allows you to know that he is sharing some type of tone that is serious and shocking to himself. He uses himself as an example of how slaves feel about having to be not considered “man”.