Dougless Blog

The speech given by Fredrick Douglass called “The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro” is still a mark in American history today because of it's intense truth in what was truly going on at the time. He even stated in paragraph ten "to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their mastcrs?". (Douglass) This in itself has such an intense and heart wrenching reality to it that gives a lasting impression still today. Douglass gave a very convincing portrayal of what was going on at this time in American society. He let the citizens he was speaking to know the harsh reality that was their truth. He spoke of all men as humans, which in some respects relates back to Emerson s writings because it talks of each individual man as being important. While Emerson would write about individuals and our rights as individuals. In paragraph nine Douglass questions this when saying "Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? that he is the rightful owner of his own body? You have already declared it. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Is that a question for Republicans? Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation, as a matter beset with great difficulty, involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard to be understood?". (Douglass) Here he is talking about how people say that African Americans are not going about getting their independence in the right way, his rebuttal is how else but to give the cold hard facts? This is very Thoreau like to me because he gives a very intense idea that the government is being unjust, which was a huge part of most of the great Henry David Thoreau's writing.


Douglass, Frederick. "Africans in America/Part 4/Frederick Douglass Speech." PBS: Public Broadcasting Service. International Publishers Co., Inc. Web. 06 Feb. 2012. .