Before Reading

Essential Course
of Study What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?
ecos Speech by Frederick Douglass Video link at
thinkcentral.com
VIDEO TRAILER KEYWORD: HML8-1030

What does
INDEPENDENCE
mean to you?
In the United States, we celebrate Independence Day on the 4th of
RI 4 Analyze the impact of specific
July every year. The holiday commemorates our independence from
word choices. RI 5 Analyze in England and the birth of our nation. But what does independence
detail the structure of a specific
paragraph in a text, including the
mean to you?
role of particular sentences.
RI 8 Evaluate the argument and
specific claims in a text, assessing LIST IT With a group, discuss what being independent means to
whether the reasoning is sound students your age. Make a list of the things you can do or the ideas
and the evidence is relevant
and sufficient. SL 3 Delineate a you can hold as an independent person. For example, perhaps to
speaker’s argument, evaluating
the reasoning and relevance and
you independence means being able to choose your own friends or
sufficiency of the evidence. listen to music your parents might not enjoy. Maybe instead it means
conquering a skill all on your own. Then consider what independence
means in the larger sense—what does it mean to be free?

1030
 Meet the Author
text analysis: speech
A speech is a talk or public address in which the speaker presents Frederick Douglass
proposals, beliefs, or ideas. In speeches, you will often encounter c. 1817–1895
rhetorical questions—questions that do not require a reply. From Slave to Abolitionist
Speech writers use these to prompt listeners to think about an Frederick Douglass endured 21 years of
issue or to suggest that the answer is obvious. As you read the slavery before he escaped to freedom in
the North. There, he became an outspoken
following speech, notice how Frederick Douglass uses rhetorical
abolitionist, or antislavery activist. During
questions and other rhetorical devices to stress his ideas. speeches, he was often attacked by
proslavery crowds who hurled insults and
reading skill: evaluate evidence even rotten eggs at him, but Douglass carried
To evaluate an argument, you need to understand the writer’s on. In the years leading up to the Civil War,
claim and the evidence that supports it. Distinguishing his powerful speeches encouraged the nation
between a factual claim and a commonplace assertion will help to turn away from slavery.
you determine whether the evidence is adequate. Dangerous Attention
The publication in 1845 of Douglass’s
• Factual claims are statements that can be proved by
autobiography, Narrative of the Life of
observation, an expert, or other reliable sources. They should Frederick Douglass, an American Slave,
not be accepted without evidence to back them up. brought Douglass some dangerous attention.
“Students who clean their own school are less likely to litter or Because he revealed the name of his former
owner in his book, Douglass risked being
vandalize school property.”
recaptured and returned to slavery. To
• Opinions are statements of personal belief, feeling, or avoid this, he left the country. When he
thought, which do not require proof. returned, two friends raised the money to
buy his freedom. Douglass then launched
“It’s wrong to make students clean the school.”
an antislavery newspaper and later advised
• Commonplace assertions are statements that many people President Lincoln during the Civil War. For
assume to be true but are not necessarily so. Generalizations Douglass, the end of the war was only a first
about life or human nature often fall into this category. step towards a greater goal. To the end of his
life, he continued working for full and equal
“One bad apple can spoil the bunch.” rights for African Americans.
As you read Douglass’s speech, note examples of factual
claims, commonplace assertions, and opinions. Then decide
background to the speech
Douglass delivered this speech on July 5,
whether he provides enough solid evidence to be convincing.
1852, nine years before the beginning
Factual Claims Commonplace Opinions of the Civil War. It was not until the 13th
Assertions Amendment was ratified in 1865 that slavery
was finally abolished.
Slaves are men.

vocabulary in context
Write a sentence for each of the following words in your
Reader/Writer Notebook. Use a dictionary or the definitions in
the following selection pages for help.
Author
word disparity prosperity grievous Online
list entitled sham fraud Go to thinkcentra
thinkcentral.com.
KEYWORD: HML8-1
HML8-1031

Complete the activities in your Reader/Writer Notebook.

1031
What is the purpose of Independence Day? Why might Douglass be
unwilling to celebrate Independence Day?

FREDERICK DOUGLASS

What does Fellow citizens—Pardon me, and allow me to ask, why am I called upon
to speak here today? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your
Douglass mean national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of
when he says, natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended
“This Fourth of to us? And am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the
July is yours, national altar, and to confess the benefits, and express devout gratitude for
not mine”? the blessings, resulting from your independence to us? . . .
. . . [S]uch is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the
disparity (dGPspBrPG-tC) n. disparity between us. I am not included within the pale1 of this glorious
the condition or fact of 10 anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance
being unequal; difference between us. The blessings in which you this day rejoice, are not enjoyed
prosperity (prJ-spDrPG-tC) in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and
n. the condition of having independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me.
success; flourishing The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes2 and
death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must
Targeted Passage 1 mourn. . . .
Fellow citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful
grievous (grCPvEs) adj. wail of millions, whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are today
causing grief, pain, or rendered more intolerable by the jubilant shouts that reach them. . . . intro. &
anguish 20 My subject, then, fellow citizens, is “American Slavery.” I shall see this purpose
a EVALUATE EVIDENCE day and its popular characteristics from the slave’s point of view. Standing
Reread lines 20–24. Is there, identified with the American bondman,3 making his wrongs mine, I
this a factual claim or an do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct
opinion? of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this Fourth of July. . . . a
What point in the anti-slavery creed4 would you have me argue? On
what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? Must I
Condemnation of hypocrisy
1. within the pale: within the limits of law or decency.
2. stripes: the marks left on the body after a whipping.
3. bondman: someone who is enslaved.
4. creed: belief.

1032 unit 9: argument and persuasion

 What’s happening
in this image? What
might the family on
the platform think
of the Fourth of July
celebration?

What does Douglass’s use of repetition accomplish?

undertake to prove that the slave is a man? That point is conceded already.
Nobody doubts it. The slaveholders themselves acknowledge it in the RI 4
enactment of laws for their government. They acknowledge it when they
b SPEECH
30 punish disobedience on the part of the slave. There are seventy-two crimes
Speeches often use
in the state of Virginia, which, if committed by a black man (no matter how the rhetorical device
ignorant he be), subject him to the punishment of death; while only two of repetition—the use of
these same crimes will subject a white man to the like punishment. What the same word, phrase,
is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual, and or sound over and over.
responsible being[?] b Factual claim: Slavery’s Brutality To Repetition can help
The manhood of the slave is conceded. It is admitted in the fact that acknowledge a speaker emphasize
Southern statute5 books are covered with enactments6 forbidding, under certain ideas and even
slaves’ develop a momentum
severe fines and penalties, the teaching of the slave to read or write. When
that seizes a crowd’s
you can point to any such laws, in reference to the beasts of the field, then humanity attention and emotions.
40 I may consent to argue the manhood of the slave. When the dogs in your Identify an example of
streets, when the fowls of the air, when the cattle on your hills, when the repetition in lines 27–35.
fish of the sea, and the reptiles that crawl, shall be unable to distinguish the
slave from a brute, then will I argue with you that the slave is a man!
For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the
Negro race. Is it not astonishing that, while we are plowing, planting, and
reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing
bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, silver, and
gold; that, while we are reading, writing, and ciphering,7 acting as clerks,

5. statute: law.
6. enactments: authorized pieces of legislation; laws.
7. ciphering: doing arithmetic; working with sums.

what to the slave is the fourth of july? 1033

 What are some of the rhetorical questions Douglass uses?
What effect do they have?

RI 8 merchants, and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers,

50 poets, authors, editors, orators,8 and teachers; that, while we are engaged
c EVALUATE EVIDENCE in all manner of enterprises common to other men—digging gold in
A factual claim is a California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on
statement that can be
the hillside, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as
proven. An opinion is
a declaration of belief, husbands, wives, and children, and, above all, confessing and worshiping the
feeling, or value, which Christian’s God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the
needs no proof. When grave—we are called upon to prove that we are men! c
Douglass says, “It is Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? That he is the
enough to affirm the rightful owner of his own body? You have already declared it. Must I argue
equal manhood of the the wrongfulness of slavery? Is that a question for republicans?9 Is it to be
Negro race” in lines 44–45, 60 settled by the rules of logic and argumentation, as a matter beset with great
is he making a factual
difficulty, involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard
claim or expressing an
opinion? to be understood? . . . To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and
to offer an insult to your understanding. There is not a man beneath the final
entitled (Dn-tFtPld) v. given canopy of heaven that does not know that slavery is wrong for him. ddenunciation
the right to have or do What! Am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them
something of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their
relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh
RI 8 with the lash,10 to load their limbs with irons,11 to hunt them with dogs,
to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth,
d EVALUATE EVIDENCE 70 to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their
A commonplace assertion
is a statement that many
masters? Must I argue that a system, thus marked with blood and stained
people assume is true with pollution, is wrong? No; I will not. I have better employment for my
but is not necessarily so. time and strength than such arguments would imply. . . .
When you come across At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is
such an assertion, ask needed. . . .
yourself if it really is true What to the American slave is your Fourth of July? I answer, a day that
for most people. Find the reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and
commonplace assertion in
cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a
lines 62–64. Is it probably
true for most people?
sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license;12 your national greatness,
80 swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your
sham (shBm) n. something denunciations of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty
false or empty that is and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and
presented as genuine; a Thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him mere
fake bombast,13 fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy—a thin veil to cover up
fraud (frôd) n. a deception
deliberately practiced to crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on
secure unfair or unlawful the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody, than are the people
gain; a trick of these United States, at this very hour. . . . !
The effect of the rhetorical Q8.toorators: speakers.
highlight injustice 9. republicans: people who believe in social equality and oppose aristocracy and privilege.
10. flay . . . lash: to strip skin off with a whip.
11. irons: metal shackles.
12. license: lack of restraint; excessive freedom.
13. bombast: high-sounding words.

1034 unit 9: argument and persuasion

After Reading

Comprehension
1. Recall What is Douglass’s subject? RI 4 Analyze the impact of specific
word choices. RI 5 Analyze in
2. Recall The celebration of what holiday spurred Douglass to speak? detail the structure of a specific
paragraph in a text, including
3. Clarify From whose point of view does Douglass speak? the role of particular sentences.
RI 8 Evaluate the argument and
specific claims in a text, assessing
Text Analysis whether the reasoning is sound
and the evidence is relevant
and sufficient. SL 3 Delineate a
4. Draw Conclusions Reread lines 1–25. What is one reason that Douglass speaker’s argument, evaluating
provides to explain why he will not celebrate the Fourth of July? the reasoning and relevance and
sufficiency of the evidence.
5. Analyze a Speech Identify two or three rhetorical questions in the speech.
Explain the points Douglass is trying to make with these questions.
6. Evaluate an Inference Once Douglass proves that “the slave is a man,” he
is able to reason that slaves should be entitled to liberty. Trace the logic
Douglass uses to arrive at this inference. Then tell whether you think his
inference is accurate and explain why or why not.
7. Evaluate Evidence Review Douglass’s concluding remarks in lines 74–85.
In your opinion, does Douglass use sound reasoning and enough reliable
support to prove that, to the slave, the Fourth of July is really a cruel sham?
Share your conclusions and your reasons for them.

Extension and Challenge

8. Speaking and Listening Practice giving this speech aloud to a peer. What
rhetorical devices might you emphasize with your tone or pacing? What
gestures might you use? What facial expressions and tone of voice?
9. SOCIAL STUDIES CONNECTION Find out more about Frederick
Douglass’s life as a slave and how it inspired him as a speaker.
Research his autobiographical writing and summarize what you learn for
the class.

What does INDEPENDENCE mean to you?

How different might Frederick Douglass’s answer to this question
have been from your answer? Explain your thoughts.

what to the slave is the fourth of july? 1035

Vocabulary in Context
vocabulary practice
Decide whether the words in each pair are synonyms (words that disparity
mean the same) or antonyms (words that mean the opposite).
entitled
1. disparity / equality
2. prosperity / poverty fraud
3. grievous / terrible grievous
4. entitled / denied
prosperity
5. sham / genuine
6. fraud / deception sham

academic vocabulary in writing

• accurate • bias • contrast • convince • logic

Do you think Douglass’s listeners would have trusted Douglass to provide

a fair and accurate account of the lives of slaves and the laws that govern
them? In a paragraph, use at least one Academic Vocabulary word in
explaining your thoughts about how they might have regarded Douglass.

vocabulary strategy: using the dictionary

Frederick Douglass chose his words carefully to convey exactly the message
L 4c Consult general reference
he intended. To be certain you understand his message, it is important to materials (e.g., dictionaries) to
understand his words. You can use a dictionary to determine the meanings find the pronunciation of a word
or determine or clarify its precise
of words, as well as their syllabication, pronunciations, alternate word choices, meaning or its part of speech.
and parts of speech. For example, Douglass calls the celebration of the L 4d Verify the preliminary
determination of the meaning of
Fourth of July “mere bombast.” Examine this entry: a word or phrase (e.g., by checking
the inferred meaning in context or
1 2 3 1 Syllabication in a dictionary).
bom•bast (bJmPbBstP) n.
4 Grandiloquent, pompous speech or writing. 2 Pronunciation

5 syn POMPOSITY, PRETENTIOUSNESS, 3 Part of speech

BLUSTER, AFFECTATION
4 Definition

Alternate
5
word choices

PRACTICE Use a dictionary to answer these questions about the

boldfaced words.
1. How many syllables are in the word prosperity?
2. What part of speech is the word fraud?
Interactive
3. What is the definition of the word sham? Vocabulary
4. What is a synonym for the word entitled? Go to thinkcentral.com.
KEYWORD: HML8-1036
5. How many syllables are in the word grievous?

1036 unit 9: argument and persuasion