What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?

Reading Check

1. He is nervous about speaking in front of the crowd. He doesn’t feel qualified or educated enough to be speaking in front of them. He also hints at being nervous that the audience may not receive his message well. (1)

2. 76 years old (2)

3. It means the country still has time to mature, grow, and change to become what it could be. (2)

4. He compares them to the Hebrews who praised Abraham and took credit for his morality while also betraying his morals and ideals. (6)

5. He’s insulted. He wonders if they are mocking him. (7)

6. The Bible (Various pages)

7. He states that the feelings and conscience of the listener must be moved by feelings of shame, embarrassment, and disgust at what is happening in the nation before people will decide to do something about it. (9)

8. Lawyers and congressmen (17)

9. Hopeful (18)

Short Answer

1. Douglass addresses the audience in an almost casual way, but he also foreshadows the crux of his argument, which is that African Americans are not included in the celebrations of liberty as they ought to be. (1)

2. He reminds his audience that the Americans who led the rebellion against the British crown were seen as radical, immoral, and fanatical at the time of the revolution. Now people view them as standing up for principles they believed in and being willing to risk social ostracism, jail, and even death to support their beliefs about liberty. He also points out that it is easy to say they were brave and noble now, but back then, no one was really sure. (2)

3. Douglass views them as principled, moral people who did not let their ideas about “proper” behavior, or decorum, limit their actions in betrayal of their principles. They fought against the odds, popular opinion, the church, the law, and the greatest political and military machine in the world. They risked everything for an idea that few nations had considered in modern times, and they fought hard so they could succeed. (5)

4. He acknowledges that others might feel his tone is too strident, emotional, shaming, and so on. He also acknowledges that others may debate the humanity of enslaved African Americans, the morality of slavery, or whether slavery is righteous in the eyes of God. Then he refutes these ideas with powerful reasons and examples. (8-9)

5. He argues that laws restricting the movements and actions of Black people and denying them human rights must assume their humanity as the basis for those rights to be denied. Because such laws don’t exist for animals, Douglass concludes that the enslavers know they are holding humans in captivity. (8)

6. Most Americans find the foreign trade in enslaved humans horrific, barbaric, and immoral, but they look the other way when it comes to the domestic trade. Douglass implies that Americans see the foreign business of slavery as a crime against humanity but have convinced themselves that the domestic practice is more humane. He goes onto show that slavery is equally horrific no matter where it occurs. (11)