Rhetorical Analysis Of Speech By Frederick Douglass

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Frederick Douglass was a African American reformer, whose purpose was to rally the nation toward abolition. In Rochester, New york, on July 5th,1852, Douglass presented his speech “what to the slave is the fourth of July”. Douglass wrote this speech to talk about the evil of slavery and the mis-celebration of the “freedom” in America. In this speech, Douglass effectively establishes credibility, and appeals to both emotion and logic.
Douglass's speeches were very powerful, people viewed him as credible due to his orator skill as well as his amazing eloquence. His inflated vocabulary and use of complex sentences portrayed him as an educated and well-informed individual. He draws from his own experience to demonstrate that he is an authority …show more content…
One including the constitution of the United States of America. He reminds his audience that the constitution promises “liberty and justice for all” He then proceeds to talk about how the slaves are treated, and what they endure while waiting in line for auction. He includes a lot of imagery in paragraph 103. Really deeply describing how inhumane and how feelingless the American owners are. “ to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock their teeth out. To burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters.” He uses this to put his audience into perspective of what it is like to be a slave. He almost uses this to project what goes on while others attention may be devoted elsewhere. Which brings me to another reason stated for slavery to be abolished in the speech. Towards the middle of the speech Douglass uses a lot of logic to show that slaves are human beings. More specifically he employs a syllogism. Which is a rhetorical device that starts an argument with a reference to something general, and from this draws a conclusion from something more specific. Again, he uses this to prove to people that slaves are no different from human beings. People respond well to logic, which in my opinion is why he chose to approach this argument in this specific
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