Rhetorical Analysis Of Frederick Douglass Speech

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Following the American Revolution, a new holiday was birth unto a new nation, the Fourth of July, an Independence Day, for some. While Caucasian-Americans were embracing the independence from Great Britain annually, those who were enslaved, were mourning. Frederick Douglass, an African-American social-reformist, who escaped slavery in his youth. On the fifth of July, 1852, Douglass delivered a historic speech conveying to the American people how slaves view the holiday that those who were free cherished. Douglass speaks greatly on how all humans deserve freedom, not just those who are light-skinned. Douglass spends more time discussing on how it does not matter what color of skin you have, you are a human, and we are all equal. He focuses …show more content…

(Douglass 380). Being a former slave, who had experienced the hardship, cruelty, and disturbing lifestyle that the slaves had been accustomed to, Douglass’s speech comes firsthand from a product of the slavery system. He has witnessed families being torn apart. Men, women, and children being whipped to death. Douglass, being a former slave, has an extreme amount of credibility. Had this speech been delivered by a white-male politician, they would have no credibility, even if they were against slavery, because they had not lived the life. Douglass’s feelings toward the American people is angry. He is appalled that while his people are enslaved, whipped, and killed, the civilian population is praising their “freedom”. “Fellow-citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them,” (Douglass

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