In “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July” Fredrick Douglass uses evidence from the Declaration of Independence, the Fugitive Act of 1850, Shakespeare, and the Bible, to strategically argue that America has the ability to be condemned but still suffices hope as a country for the future. He parallels the significant difference in celebrating the Fourth of July in America through the use of racial contents, in which he proves that the national holiday is undoubtedly celebrated differently amongst the dark clouds and the bright horizon. Douglas's speech brings to light the hypocrisy and hatred that the young nation discreetly tries to overshadow. Through his evidence, diction and ideas, he measures the unjust, unreasonable, and oppressive qualities
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For instance, he uses a quote from Marc Antony’s Funeral Oration for Caesar in Act 3, Scene 2 of William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: “The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft-interred with their bones.” During this time, not many blacks would have been able to annotate and comprehend such literature. Because his audience was more educated, white and elite, he was able to include the Shakespeare quote and relate it to the former founders and their circumstances with slaves and hypocrisy in the Declaration of Independence; showing that although they may have done some good, their evil, especially with slavery was overpowering.
The central question that Douglass proposed was his reason for being the representative for “their” national independence, especially since he is unable to celebrate his freedom. He asked the political and natural justice embodied in the Declaration of Independence, which was apparently lacked upon him and his people. Douglas says,
“This Fourth [of] July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak
For instance, he uses a quote from Marc Antony’s Funeral Oration for Caesar in Act 3, Scene 2 of William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: “The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft-interred with their bones.” During this time, not many blacks would have been able to annotate and comprehend such literature. Because his audience was more educated, white and elite, he was able to include the Shakespeare quote and relate it to the former founders and their circumstances with slaves and hypocrisy in the Declaration of Independence; showing that although they may have done some good, their evil, especially with slavery was overpowering.
The central question that Douglass proposed was his reason for being the representative for “their” national independence, especially since he is unable to celebrate his freedom. He asked the political and natural justice embodied in the Declaration of Independence, which was apparently lacked upon him and his people. Douglas says,
“This Fourth [of] July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak