Rhetorical Analysis Of What To The Slave Is The Fourth Of July

Frederick Douglass presented this speech to his fellow citizens and friends on July 5, 1852; one of his more well-known in fact, titled “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”. Frederick states at the beginning that he had been invited to speak about what the Fourth of July meant for America's black population at the time. The first half of his speech he praises and respects the founding fathers that built this country, but he soon turns to criticize America’s attitude towards slavery. He tells that the main purpose of his speech is not to give thanks and praise to these men, because what these people have done is well-known, but instead to urge his listeners to continue the work of those revolutionaries who brought freedom and democracy

He reminds the audience that, in 1776, many colonists thought it was seditious and dangerous to revolt against the British crown. In 1852, however, he says to say "that America was right, and England wrong, is exceedingly easy.” In the same sense in his time, people consider abolitionism and dangerous and seditious political stance, but like the rebellious subjects, that we now call heroes, he wants to go against what people say for the good of the country. Douglass stays that future generations will consider his anti-slavery stance “patriotic, just, and reasonable” as we think now how the Revolution’s leaders were. To celebrate the white man's freedom from oppression is "inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony" as African Americans are not free and still oppressed by other white Americans; a defilement of American ideals held in the Declaration: democracy, freedom, and equal rights. The real subject he wanted to talk about in his speech is American slavery. He criticizes the American society for being untrue to the founding principles in the Constitution for