What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?

“The fact is, ladies and gentlemen, the distance between this platform and the slave plantation, from which I escaped, is considerable-and the difficulties to be overcome in getting from the latter to the former are by no means slight. That I am here to-day is, to me, a matter of astonishment as well as of gratitude.” 

In almost no other section of Douglass’s address does he specifically reference his own origins as a person who was subjected to enslavement. Therefore, this almost subtle reference to the slave plantation is an important framing for his narrative voice throughout the speech. He invites his audience to empathize with his situation before slowly laying out an argument for abolition. 

“According to this fact, you are, even now, only in the beginning of your national career, still lingering in the period of childhood. I repeat, I am glad this is so.”

A critical aspect of Douglass’s arguments is that America is still in its childhood and is therefore still able to mature, change course, and cease the oppressive practice of slavery. Positioning America as a young country also helps Douglass’s audience see themselves as people who can shape the future of the nation, rather than simply a part of a static sociopolitical landscape. Finally, this metaphor allows the White audience to better cope with the guilt and shame of their complicity in upholding slavery, given that they are only children.

“Oppression makes a wise man mad. Your fathers were wise men, and if they did not go mad, they became restive under this treatment.”

In much of the introductory passage of Douglass’s speech, he does not explicitly reference slavery. Instead, Douglass lays out key moral facets of his arguments that, ideally, his