Frederick Douglass gave the speech “What to the Slave is the 4th of July?”
In 1852 at the Ladies anti-slavery society. He portrays the duality of the meaning of the 4th of July and calls out the hypocrisy of America. In his speech “What to the Slave is the 4th of July?” Frederick Douglass uses the rhetorical devices of ethos, logos, and hypophora to achieve his purpose of informing his audience of the cruelties of slavery.
The first rhetorical device that Douglass uses is ethos. He is a credible source of the brutality of slavery, seeing as he was a slave himself who was able to buy his own freedom. In his speech he says “The sunlight that brought light and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice; I must mourn.” (Douglass, 2017, P.291). Douglass does not claim the celebration of the Fourth of July at all. It
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An example of hypophora in the text is “Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, is wrong? No! I will not. I have better employment for my time and strength than such arguments would imply.”(Douglass, 2017, P.292). It is an obvious statement that slavery is a crime against freedom, Douglass uses this to prove how especially horrid it is that he would even have to spend time arguing the fact. He then follows this by asking finally “What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.” (Douglass, 2017, P.291). This is the most significant statement in his speech since he decides to finally answer this question. He uses this to make it as clear as day why he is delivering this speech and how important it is that to the slave, the Fourth of July is pure