The speech by Fredrick Douglass was initially supposed to be a speech about the importance of the 4th of July. However, Douglass, as a freed slave, didn't exactly find importance in the 4th of July, because it speaks of freedom, and there are so many Americans that aren't free. He begins to craft his words into an abolitionist speech. Here he begins to talk about how the whites don't view the blacks as people, but they are in fact people. The interesting thing he does is that he twists the slaveholders's own logic around and shows that because of the laws they have enforced, they are already stating that blacks are people. This is how he appears to logos- he shows the logic and makes the twist of speech in a very understandable manner, even though it would have taken a decent amount of thought to arrive at some of the examples that he made- which in and of itself proves his point, because it shows how intelligent he is, and in a way, he sort of raises himself above the white people instead of equalizing them.
His appear to ethos is easy- as soon as he establishes blacks as being equal to whites, he goes through all of the gruesome and sad things that slaveholders do to their slaves. He then asks, What if this were you? would you like it done to you? Of course nobody would, and that is where he makes the connection with human emotions and puts everybody in the audience on the same level.
1 comment:
The main point that you made that I agreed with was when you said that Douglass used the logic of the abolitionists against them and turned it around. That is also what I loved about his speech. He doesn't just try to make them believe what he is telling them, he uses something they already understand to explain what he is feeling to them.
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