 What to the Slave is the Fourth of July Frederick Douglass

  (1818–1895) was a former slave who became the greatest abolitionist orator of the antebellum period (The time leading up to the Civil War).  During the Civil War he worked tirelessly for the emancipation of the four million enslaved African Americans.  In the decades after the war, he was the most influential African American leader in the nation.

  The son of a slave woman and an unknown white man, "Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey" was born on February of 1818 on Maryland's eastern shore.  He spent his early years with his grandparents and with an aunt, seeing his mother only four or five times before her death when he was seven. (All Douglass knew of his father was that he was white.) Early Years

  During his childhood he was exposed to the degradations of slavery, witnessing firsthand brutal whippings and spending much time cold and hungry.  When he was eight he was sent to Baltimore to live with a ship carpenter named Hugh Auld. There he learned to read and first heard the words abolition and abolitionists. "Going to live at Baltimore," Douglass would later say, "laid the foundation, and opened the gateway, to all my subsequent prosperity." Early Years

  Douglass spent seven relatively comfortable years in Baltimore before being sent back to the country, where he was hired out to a farm run by a notoriously brutal "slave-breaker" named Edward Covey. And the treatment he received was indeed brutal. Whipped daily and barely fed, Douglass was "broken in body, soul, and spirit." Slavery

  On January 1, 1836, Douglass made a resolution that he would be free by the end of the year. He planned an escape. But early in April he was jailed after his plan was discovered.  Two years later, he fled the city of Baltimore on September 3, Travelling by train, then steamboat, then train, he arrived in New York City the following day.  Several weeks later he had settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts, living with his newlywed bride (whom he met in Baltimore and married in New York) under his new name, Frederick Douglass. Escape

  In 1845, Douglass published his autobiography, "The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: an American Slave."  With the revelation that he was an escaped slave, Douglass became fearful of possible re-enslavement and fled to Great Britain.  He stayed there for two years, giving lectures in support of the antislavery movement in America.  With the assistance of English Quakers, Douglass raised enough money to buy his own his freedom and in 1847 he returned to America as a free man. Autobiography

 Background Information 8  Douglass had been living in Rochester, New York for several years editing a weekly abolitionist newspaper when he was invited to give a fourth of July speech by the Ladies Anti-Slavery Society of Rochester.  In the early 1850s, tensions over slavery were high across the county. The Compromise of 1850 had failed to resolve the controversy over the admission of new slave states to the Union. The Fugitive Slave Act passed by Congress as part of this compromise was bitterly resented by the Northern states. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel about slavery, Uncle Tom’s Cabin: Or Life among the Lowly had been published a few months before and unexpectedly became a national bestseller. Across the country people were thinking and arguing about slavery, abolitionism, and where the tensions were likely to lead the nation.

  Just 23 years old when he gave what was to be considered one of the best speeches of the 19 th century.  On July 5, 1852, Douglass gave a speech at an event commemorating the signing of the Declaration of Independence, held at Rochester's Corinthian Hall.  It was biting oratory, in which the speaker told his audience, "This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn." And he asked them, "Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day?" What to the Slave is the Fourth of July

 10 Evaluating Arguments  Factual Claims- statements that can be proved by observation, an expert, or other reliable experts. "Students who clean their own school are less likely to litter or vandalize school property."  Opinions- statements of personal belief, feeling, or thought, which do not require proof.. "It's wrong to make students clean the school."  Commonplace Assertions- statements that many people assume to be true but are not necessarily so. Generalizations about life or human nature often fall in this category. "One bad apple can spoil the bunch."

 Vocabulary  Disparity – condition or fact of being unequal; difference  Entitled – given the right to have or do something  Prosperity – condition of having success; flourishing

 Vocabulary  Sham – something false or empty that is presented as genuine; a fake  Grievous – causing grief, pain, or anguish  Fraud – a deception deliberately practiced to secure unfair or unlawful gain; a trick

 Rhetorical Questions It is a question asked for which no answer is expect Rhetorical questions are asked for dramatic effect.

 Sarcasm is a bitter form of irony; it is intended to taunt or to hurt. Sarcasm

 Sarcasm is a bitter form of irony; it is intended to taunt or to hurt. Contrasts

 Regular repetition of the same word or phrase At the beginning of successive phrases or clauses. Anaphora