Rhetorical Triangle Of Slavery Rhetorical Analysis

Douglass’s Rhetorical Triangle of Slavery America was created by people seeking freedom from tyranny and injustice, yet slavery represents the complete opposite of America’s founding principles. The Bill of Rights, with all of its rights and freedoms, did not apply to slaves. Not only were they deprived of the right to free speech and property ownership, but they were also denied the rights to life, individual liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Rather, slaves were treated as property and not at all equal to man. Unimaginable and horrific treatment of slaves by white men has been documented by many who present emotionally stirring accounts from a slave’s perspective with little insight or objective analysis into how slavery was created …show more content…
Douglass has two well-respected white men, William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips, write the preface and the introductory letter before his story even begins. Garrison, a leading abolitionist as well as founder and publisher of a well-known antislavery newspaper The Liberator, states in the preface that “it [Douglass’s Narrative] is, in my judgment, highly creditable to his head and heart…that it comes short of reality, rather than overstates a single fact in regard to SLAVERY AS IT IS” (7-8). Phillips, a Harvard-trained attorney and abolitionist public speaker, reinforces Douglass’s credibility in his introductory letter when he says, “Again, we have known you long, and can put the most entire confidence in your truth, candor and sincerity” (14) and then warns him to be careful because he is placing himself in danger by publishing his own declaration of freedom. By these two highly esteemed white men attesting to the authenticity of Douglass’s book, he is able to achieve credibility within the white community and lessen the