Frederick Douglas Reasoning On Slavery

Decent Essays
Douglas claim reasoning on slave holders, governors and everybody with the argument of logical reason: “ There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, that does not know that slavery is wrong for him” (27) “ America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future, standing with God and crushed and bleeding slave”…(26) Douglas calls the people to hear the sorrow of the ones who have been forced separated from their land, their family and now in this new land do not have any right, he calls to see the hideous and revolting nation, where people are being sell like animals or products, he calls to the ones who feel insulted by this intolerable situation to speak up, to lead a “revolution” where

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Stephen Douglas: Abolitionist, Proslaveryite, or both? Francesca Scola Stephen Douglas's purposeful political ambiguity and avid pursuit of self-aggrandisement demonstrated through his stance on the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Lecompton Constitution, and Freeport Doctrine, ultimately cost him the 1860 election. Through his stance on the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Lecompton Constitution, and Freeport Doctrine, Stephen Douglas’s purposeful ambiguity and avid pursuit of self-aggrandisement ultimately cost him the 1860 election.…

    • 955 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    In conclusion, Frederick Douglass was an educated, African American slave who was a former slave. He, with many others, withstood such torturous acts that no living being should ever have to sustain. Douglass survived the horrendous journey of slavery, and his undying hope paved the way to freedom for many slaves. With this, he had a credible, logical and emotional argument against slavery. His bravery of becoming a free slave became an inspiration to the slaves still under the captivity of slave holders, and to all the many readers today.…

    • 90 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Group 4. “I have observed this in my experience of slavery, -- that whenever my condition was improved, instead of its increasing my contentment, it only increased my desire to be free, and set me to thinking of plans to gain my freedom. I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason.”…

    • 478 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    More importantly was slavery about color or was it a crime that human beings were created for slavery? Douglass growing up saw the injustices, and soon started to inquire the hardest questions like why was he a slave? Where was God in these situations? Why is he silent in their suffering? And soon realized “’it was not color, but crime, not God, but man’ that created slavery” (Dilbeck, 2009, 17-18).…

    • 210 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “You must stop a little, there is no man whose opinion I value more than yours. I want to know what you think.” How would you feel if President Abraham Lincoln were to tell you this? You might feel so excited that you could not speak, no? Well, for Frederick Douglass, the abolitionist for African Americans, it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to have met him.…

    • 791 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As humans we go through great deal of thoughts and emotions that are cemented forever in our brains. No matter the change in our lives we will remember and we don’t forget the worst that we go through, but we use it as motivation and to change others. Douglass and many other slave’s stories are the remnants that legitimately tells us how slavery was and how they experienced the feeling that they did. Douglass’s argument in these paragraphs were that the cruelty and lengthy hours of work and never ending pain that comes with it, breaks down who you are as a person. Douglass lays out in the opening that the work was unbearable and at times the slaves would hope for it to rain, blow, hail, or snow, too hard for them to work in the field but they never stopped working.…

    • 533 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    able to perform activities such as: ploughing, 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 cyphering, acting as clerks, merchants and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators and teachers; that, while we are engaged in all manner of enterprises common to other men, digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hill-side, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives and children, and, above all, confessing and worshipping the Christian’s God,…

    • 716 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Abolitionism emerged in United Stated through different figures and characters, one of them would be the highly influential speaker Frederick Douglass who in an open letter in 1852 refers to the 4th of July as the celebration of the United States biggest sin. He gives a reflection of the cruelty exercised over Black communities, and how people have been decided to leave behind or just ignored the pain. He calls “AMERICA SLAVERY” (9) as a protest for all the injustice that happens, and the fact that a nation is build over some people’s pain, without even consider for moment their right to live equally among the others. Although the great America is a religious land, people rather interpose their status or their economical interest instead of…

    • 1040 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Slavery in America was a very cruel form of work, in which many did not have the option but to work as slaves, for example Frederick Douglas, who was born to Harriet Bailey (a former slave), did not get that option, although he was born to a “white man” who was whispered to be his to be his master, (Narrative pg. 20) by law Douglas had to follow the condition of his mother who was a previous slave (Narrative pg. 21). Douglas starts off doing simpler work because of his young age, but as he grows older , he is forced to do more difficult and brutal work. Douglas also grows wiser and plans his successful escape to New York, which would occur “on the third day of September, 1838” (Narrative pg. 112). In the following paragraphs I will explain…

    • 1419 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In 1862, Frederick Douglass, a former slave and active abolitionist, was travelling across the Union, giving speeches and soliciting signatures for petitions against slavery (Douglass, 413). In February, he published a speech titled "The Reasons for Our Troubles," which he had given in Philadelphia about a month earlier. In this speech, Douglass argues his beliefs on the causes of the Civil War and on how to solve the issue of slavery in America. In contrast, after the Civil War had ended, in 1866 Jubal Early, a former Confederate General, published a record of his experiences and thoughts from the last year of the war (Early, 429). In his preface, Early relays what he believes to be the truth about the war and advocates for his beliefs in…

    • 1145 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    This final paragraph is dedicated to the misconceptions and discrimination regarding slaves. As discussed in previous chapter, slaves were seen as property, a property to do with as a master saw fit. This paper also discussed how having the mindset of being superior over another person can warp the mind and nature of a person. This paragraph will expand on the misconceptions of slaves, which did not fit into the previous two chapters. One aspect that is critically important is the understandings that people had regarding the nature of slaves.…

    • 557 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Frederick Douglass was one of the many people born into slavery in the early 1800’s. He was born in the Tuckahoe district of Maryland. Like other slaves, Frederick’s identity was kept from him, and he did not know the basic things like his age or his date of birth. It bothered him knowing how slaves were being treaded, but is not till he escaped that he became a freeman. In My Bondage and My Freedom, Douglass claims slavery not only affected him, but also slave holders, and the non-slave holding whites.…

    • 842 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A slave must be a man if he is seen as “moral, intellectual, and responsible” enough to avoid committing any of the seventy-two crimes punishable by death. All throughout his speech, it is evident that Douglas relies on simple logic and common sense to prove his points. For example, Douglas points out that if he were to ask any man if slavery was wrong, they would say yes. In addition to this, if he were to ask a man if they wanted to be a slave, they would say no. Additionally, Douglas uses God and the Bible as part of his argument.…

    • 673 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In 1845 Frederick Douglass wrote “Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass” He tells of life as a slave, from early childhood into his adulthood. Describing many of the hardships he faced in great detail, which was revolutionary at its time. It brought the reality of slavery to the light. He tells of his life as a slave in the south.…

    • 1186 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    He urges the audience to fulfill what the country advocated by their founding fathers. He further condones the nation for their cruel hypocrisy. He states that “Your Fourth of July is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license… Your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery.” Douglass also uses his personal experience of enslavement to retort to the people who oppose the idea of abolition. He reasons by asking how could people allow to impose to others such a horrid condition that no one would impose on themselves?…

    • 700 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays