'Frederick Douglass And The Abolitionist Movement Essay\r'

'Frederick Douglass babble out to Washington, DC in 1876: â€Å"We must both have all the rights of Ameri flush toilet citizens, or we must be exterminated, for we can neer again be slaves…” (Foner, 1969, p. 320, as cited in Ballard, 2004, p. 53). This state workforcet concretizes the in kindity of thralldom; its solo equal is death. Douglass was born as a slave in Talbot County, Maryland. It was 1818 and slaveholding already existed for two hundred years in the United States (U. S. ). It took Douglass twenty years, before he escaped slavery.\r\nBefore his escape, Douglass surreptitiously lettered to read and write, and he soon come up as one of the most silvern orators of the abolitionists. Using barbarism premeditated to harm, educate, and sometimes infuriate, Frederick Douglass encouraged the abolitionist ride. Douglass utilise his speeches to distress concourse about their impairment, so that they would be aware of its inequitable and dangerous outco mes. When stack were distressed of the rattlingities and results of slavery, they would be more attracted by the principles and goals of the abolitionists. Douglass argued that slavery produces no bene fills for the society.\r\nslaveholding moreover leads to ignorance among sables, which both negatively affects them and the sports realitylikes. In â€Å"The church building and Prejudice,” Douglass asserted: â€Å"You degrade us, and thitherfore be speak why we are degradedâ€you come together our mouths, and then ask why we fag out’t speakâ€you close our colleges and seminaries against us, and then ask why we get in’t know more. ” The blacks were disadvantaged by unawareness, era the whites were deprived of intellectual forces that the black mess could have provided. In his speeches, Douglass further physical objected to speak to both whites and blacks, so that they could find out slavery’s demeaning consequences.\r\nIt was his w ay of exploitation literacy to distribute power among the black demesne, without disempowering the whites. Lisa Sisco communicativeize that Douglass defined literacy as â€Å"shifting” as he showed an â€Å"understanding of literacy as a system of self-representation… and as an avenue for policy-making representation as he attempts to speak and write for an oppressed volume without estrange his white readership” (p. 213 as cited in Ryden, 2005, p. 7). slavery alike compounds prejudice that would have deflower a critical victory for the landed estate during the the Statesn Civil War (1861-1865).\r\nDouglass criticized how the American government activity would plane imagine be a bigot in times of need, by not recruiting blacks as soldiers. He asked the chairperson of the United States: â€Å"…if this dark and terrible arcminute of the nation’s extremity is a time for consulting a mere mutual and unnatural prejudice? ” Douglass s poke articulately about how the blacks had helped the whites to rebel against the government, and so there should be no reason that the government would not employ black quite a little to be soldiers of the state: â€Å"Rising to a higher place vulgar prejudice, the slaveholding rebel accepts the instigate of the black man as readily as that of whatever other.\r\nIf a spoilt cause can do this, why should a good cause be less wisely conducted? ” He as well as made a compelling symbolism for a state fighting without the financial aid of the blacks: â€Å"Men in earnest don’t fight with one hand, when they mightiness fight with two, and a man drowning would not refuse to be saved level(p) by a colored hand. ” by means of this speech, Douglass distressed the audience into thinking that slavery does not make any sand at all, and only its abolition can protect the state from another secessionist movement and other threats to national security and peace.\r \nDouglass precious to educate volume about the big(p) failings of slavery through his speeches- slavery reduces bulk to beasts with no free will or self-control (DeLombard, 2001). If slavery was this immoral, Douglass could compel spate to join the abolitionist movement. Slavery turns sympathetic beings into creatures of violence or submission, through a dialectic process embedded in the master-slave relationship.\r\nAn article compared Douglass’ understanding of slavery to Hegel’s: Hegel â€Å"knew about real slaves revolting against real masters, and he elaborated his dialectic of lordship and slavery deliberately within this contemporary scene” (Buck-Morss, 2000, p. 844 as cited in Kohn, 2005, p. 498). Douglass’ speeches related the dialectical impacts of slavery to all parties involved. First, slavery dehumanizes slaves. Douglass draw the horrendous experiences of slaves under the white man. The verbal and physical abuse could only fit anima ls. These experiences of the slaves underlined the inhumanity of slavery.\r\nSecond, Douglass argued that slavery dehumanizes masters as well. In â€Å"The church building and Prejudice,” he provided a fitting sheath of a slaveholder who acted like a vicious animal. Douglass verbalise that there was a class drawing card master of the Methodist Church, who preached about bringing and liberty. However, he in any event lashed Douglass’ cousin through the same thumbs that prayed, while using the lyric poem of the Bible to rationalize his illogical behaviour: â€Å"He that knoweth his master’s will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with some(prenominal) stripes! ” Douglass in addition educated move about the ills of prejudice on the protection of obliging rights and liberties.\r\nIn â€Å"What the Black Man Wants,” Douglass explained that black peck have suffrage rights, simply because as human beings they do: â€Å"We want it because it is our right, maiden of all. No class of men can, without diss their own nature, be content with any deprivation of their rights. ” By asserting these rights, Douglass move peck to believe that all human beings have human rights, so they would frequent the civil rights and freedoms that the abolitionist movement fought for. Douglass used his speeches to infuriate lot into action, into destroying every make for and face of slavery.\r\nIn the speech â€Å"The Church and Prejudice,” Douglass narrated his experiences of religious bigotry: â€Å"[A minister looked to the door, where the blacks were and disenfranchised heavily] Come up, colored friends, come up! for you know God is no respecter of persons! ” This is an example of a speech that enraged throng to question the sanity of slavery, when even â€Å"men of the altar” acted like beasts. This speech also uses humor to depict the dark waggery of slavery (Ganter, 2003). How can God tell between colored and white people? They are His children, are they not?\r\nDouglass also infuriated people by illustrating the bareness of slavery and its different forms. In â€Å"What the black man wants,” Douglass defended the right of the colored people to choose employment: â€Å"…when any psyche or combination of individuals undertakes to decide for any man when he shall work, where he shall work, at what he shall work, and for what he shall work,” it is still a form of slavery. By underlining how the government and white people preserved slavery even after the Declaration of Independence, Douglass enraged people to eradicate slavery.\r\nDouglass also incensed the people in his Fourth of July speech delivered in Rochester on July 5, 1852, where he assaulted the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act. David W. Blight stressed that the attack came with Douglass repetitions of a harmless word, yours (p. 75 as cited in Ramsey, 2007, p. 29). Douglass said: â€Å"This, for the purpos e of this celebration, is the Fourth of July. It is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. ” The word â€Å"your” aimed to â€Å" give over his audience as America has estranged him” (Ramsey, 2007, p. 29).\r\nDouglass aggravated listeners by enunciating that there was no real independence, only social elision and neglect: â€Å"This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You whitethorn rejoice, I must mourn. ” Douglass’ rhetorical manoeuvre meant to aggressively plead, by transferring the feeling of how the nation had abandoned him to listeners, so that they too would feel how difficult and iniquitous it was to be â€Å" deprive” (Ramsey, 2007, p. 29; Waymer& Heath, 2007). His ending for speech emphasized his anger and resentment. He asked people to find another place that had been as vicious as the U.\r\nS. in upturning civil liberties and freedoms: â€Å"for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocris y, America reigns without a rival. ” This speech angered people to feel that racism brutally orphaned the whole society, and it was time to abolish slavery and its emerging forms. Douglass used the power of the communicate word to distress, educate, and sometimes infuriate, so that people would be persuaded to join the abolitionist movement. His speeches horny emotions and intellectual understanding, which maximize logos and poignance as rhetorical strategies.\r\nBy trust these strategies, Douglass could reach out to as many hearts and minds as possible- in every side of the color line. His earnest aim was to change attitudes and behavior toward the colored race and the idea of freedom and humanity. Douglass’ speeches have in effect expressed his core vision of society, a society of free and equal whites and blacks. References Ballard, B. J. (2004). Frederick Douglass and the ideology of resistance. Critical Review of International affectionate & Political Phil osophy, 7 (4), 51-75. DeLombard, J. (2001).\r\n‘Eye-witness to the stiffness’: Southern violence and northern affirmation in Frederick Douglass’s American Literature, 73 (2), 245-275. Douglass, F. (1841). The church and prejudice. Retrieved from http://www. frederickdouglass. org/speeches/ _______. (1852). â€Å"What to the slave is the 4th of July? ” Retrieved from http://www. freemaninstitute. com/douglass. htm _______. (1861). armed combat rebels with only one hand. Retrieved from http://www. frederickdouglass. org/speeches/ _______. (1865). What the black man wants. Retrieved from http://www. frederickdouglass. org/speeches/ Ganter, G. (2003).\r\nâ€Å"He made us put-on some”: Frederick Douglass’s humor. African American Review, 37 (4), 535-552. Kohn, M. (2005). Frederick Douglass’s master-slave dialectic. Journal of Politics, 67 (2), 497-514. Ramsey, W. M. (2007). Frederick Douglass, Southerner. Southern Literary Journal, 40 ( 1), 19-38. Ryden, W. (2005). Conflicted literacy: Frederick Douglass’s critical model. Journal of Basic Writing, 24 (1), 4-23. Waymer, D. & Heath, R. (2007). Non-profit activist public relations and the paradox of the positive: A case study of Frederick Douglass’ â€Å"Fourth of July Address. ” National communicating Association, Conference, 1-39.\r\n'