Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas, two hardworking people, actually came from humble beginnings. Abraham Lincoln first was a poor farmer in Kentucky. After his mother’s death, he moved to Indiana. Looking for work, Abraham Lincoln moved to Illinois as a lawyer. There he taught himself law and made his way up to being a very popular lawyer. Knowing his popularity, he decided to run for the legislature. After a failed attempt, he finally made it as a state representative. Next, he was voted 4 times into the Illinois legislature from 1834 to 1840 and later voted into Congress and then senator. Stephen Douglas, on the other hand, was native to Vermont. As a young kid, he received a superior education, and, similar to Abe Lincoln, lost a parent. …show more content…
Abraham Lincoln was one of the people who thought slavery was wrong. Although, Abraham’s ideas on slavery were not that simple. Abraham Lincoln did think that slaves should be free, but he also wanted colonization. This meant that all slaves should be sent to where they came from. “As a young politician in Illinois before the Civil War, Lincoln often voiced his belief that blacks and whites would live best if they lived separately” (Vorenberg, Michael). Stephen Douglas’s views on slavery are also not simple. He can’t be proved slavery or anti slavery. He was thought to be anti slavery because at one point he agreed with Thomas Jefferson that slavery was evil. Although his reasoning were not clear. On the other hand, he was thought to be pro slavery because farmers wanted slaves, so he did not want to demote their ideas. In 1846, he wanted to solve the issue of slavery, so to please the congressmen he suggested popular sovereignty. Although, many thought his ideas were fake because he switch his ideas on slavery frequently. For example, He choose to be pro-slavery in the Lincoln Douglas debates. “In addition to this philosophical support of slavery, Douglas also defended slavery against antislavery attacks throughout his career” (Peck, Graham A.). As a result, the Lincoln's and Douglas’s views on slavery are not that
Both Frederick Douglass and Socrates prioritize the True over their reputations. Willing to admit his weaknesses, Douglass’s main goal is to seek the True even if it means leaving his reputation undefended. He begins his speech by having a “distrust of [his] ability” and claims that when it comes to public speaking, he has “little experience” (Douglass). Douglass admits that topics concerning American history should be discussed with people who were educated through the school system instead of with a slave who has no educational background. He ultimately establishes trust with his audience by pursuing the True over maintaining his reputation.
For my topic on Frederick Douglass’ narrative and Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Self-Reliance”, I will discuss several details and points. These points will include Douglass’ adversity as a slave and Emerson’s journey in making sense of his life and self-identity. Also, in the discussion, I will add the similarities and differences between the thoughts of Douglass and Emerson on how each felt about their masters or Whites in general. These thoughts include Douglass’ reasoning of writing his autobiography, so that the reader it was intended for could understand why abolishing slavery was so important and Emerson’s hope that people would use their inner voice and learn to confront the issues on hand and not what others wanted to instill onto slaves.
Imagine being a slave in the 1800’s with no clue to why you have no absolute freedom. Imagine being in prison and completely changing into a different person while you’re in there. Imagine being the only daughter of six sons, however, you are neglected by your own father and brothers. These situations may have their differences, but in a way they actually have many things in common too. Frederick Douglass was owned by Mr. and Mrs. Hughs.
“To Lincoln, freedom meant opposition to slavery. Douglas insisted that the essence of freedom lay in local self-government.” (Voice of freedom, 272) At the debate, Douglas stated that making African American be equal to White American is a wrong thing, “I am opposed
Malcolm x; Statement clarifies that his homemade education with every additional book he read it, gave him a sensitivity to the ignorance of African american race. Sherman Alexie; statement states him realizing that a paragraph is a fence that held words, helped him identify that his reservation, his house and each person in his family were a paragraph with its own stories. Sherman Alexie; statement describes the expectation others had on Indian children, in which they were expected to be stupid, however these children did not live to that expectation outside school. Frederick Douglass; statement explains how the books he read relived one of his difficulty, however they brought more pain than the one’s he was relieved from, because the more
Douglas expected to reach those that condemned slavery but wished to provide the motivation to make moves to end
To begin, everybody has their own perspective, their own view-point. As Marcus Aurelius once said, “Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is perspective, not fact.” Fredrick Douglas was an African-American abolitionist, author, an influential historical figure, and immensely outspoken about the suffering, torment, agony, and hardships that slaves had endured at the hands of their brutal and ruthless slaveholders. Fredrick Douglas was born into slavery and he was fully aware of the pain and horror that slaves went through.
Throughout the infamous novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn written by Mark Twain, and the narrative, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass an American Slave written by Frederick Douglass, the overall theme of freedom in these novels is present to all characters within each book. In the end freedom has the same meaning to the characters Huck, Jim, and Frederick. However, the way these characters reach this conclusion differs because of their personal experiences. The form of freedom Huck strives for at the start of the book is very different than those of Jim and Frederick. Earning freedom for Huck does not mean escaping slavery, but rather escaping a dark past and finding a new light in getting away from the awful ties he has to
Two Great Men “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time. ”- Thomas a. Edison Frederick Douglas and Booker T. Washington were both amazing civil rights activists. Frederick Douglas was a runaway slave who worked to end slavery.
Lincoln and Douglass were self-made, self-educated, and ambitious, and each rose to success from humble backgrounds. Douglass, of course, was an escaped slave. Douglass certainly and Lincoln most likely detested slavery from his youngest days. But Lincoln from his young manhood was a consummate politician devoted to compromise, consensus-building, moderation and indirection. Douglass was a reformer who spoke and wrote eloquently and with passion for the abolition of slavery
he uses bold words and biting criticism to call attention to the gross injustices and hypocrisy of slavery in the United States. In the opening remarks of his speech, Douglas provides heart-wrenching descriptions to pull his audience into the lives of their fellow
Most of his time was in the movement of the abolition of slavery. He did not want any other black person to face brutality, humiliation, and pain. His arguments became very useful in the anti-slavery movement. It is through his experiences of being a slave that he urged for the abolition of slavery (Douglass, 1845). Douglass’ style of narration makes the reader to be involved in the story emotionally.
Mark Twain and Frederick Douglass both have interesting ways of writing. There are similarities and differences in their writing. They each have their own personal preference toward their style, tone, and perspective. Each story was a remembrance of boyhood written in first person. As evident, Twain’s story takes place as a boy in a town on the Mississippi River.
I decided to do a compare and contrast paper, by comparing Frederick Douglas to Elie Wiesel. Frederick, who was a former slave, and Elie Wiesel was a sent to Poland during the Holocaust, both became some of the best writers and speakers of all time. I chose to compare these two authors, because I thought it would be interesting to compare the two writers that come from different backgrounds, but both wrote biographies about two of the worst times in history, slavery. What is an A biography? It’s a “detailed description of a person's life", (Article 5) maybe like education, work, relationships, and death, Biographies is supposed to show real life experiences of these life events.
Although chapter four of “The Boy’s Ambition” by Mark Twain and chapter five of Frederick Douglass's “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave” were written in the 1800’s and tell about the author's childhood, they are written very differently. While Twain uses exaggeration to create humor, Douglass uses a formal diction to create ethos. The use of these writing techniques make each piece of writing believable and lasting. Although the situation for each author was very different, the similarities between the texts show the similarities in their character.