Frederick Douglass 'Ladies' Anti-Slavery

Frederick Douglass spends most of his speech telling his audience what points do not need to be argued because there were people who used the same facts to come to a different conclusion. The nation celebrated the Fourth of July: a holiday commemorating the signing of a document that declared “man is entitled to liberty” (380) while enslaving their fellow man. This logical disconnect necessitated the reiteration of what points do not need to be argued. If the slave is a man, a point that is “conceded already [and] Nobody doubts it” (379), and a man should be the “rightful owner of his own body” (380), a fact the United States as a nation had declared almost 80 years previously with the Declaration of Independence, then the logical conclusion

is the slave should be free. Nevertheless, there were those in the nation who did not follow that logical argument; therefore Douglass reiterated details his audience already agreed with to guide them to a conclusion.
2.

Douglass is presenting his argument to a meeting of the Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society (Faigley, 377). As such, he used imagery that will appeal to mothers. The image of a mother and her baby (383) would have breached the motherly instincts of his audience. Douglass adds details to the image that would rouse the ethical ire of a group of women. Douglass reminds his audience that such horrifying sights are not originating in the “despotisms of the old world” (381) or even sequestered in New Orleans, a city that could at least be looked down upon as too far away to matter; instead, Douglass reminds the women that the barbarous actions he describes take place in Baltimore: a city barely two states away from their meeting place in a state that might as well be considered part of the

North.
3. Douglass’s personal history boosts his credibility. A speaker who refers to horrors without experiencing them could be refuted by any individual who argues that second or third hand stories are not reliable, or that the speaker is making the events sound worse than they actually are. Douglass counteracts possible questions toward his integrity by not only using personal anecdotes, but also naming names. If one doubted Douglass’s account, one need only to track down Austin Woldfolk of Baltimore, Maryland and confirm or disconfirm Douglass’s story (383).
Furthermore, when a speaker refers to a horror of which they have heard but not experienced, the problem is not presented as one that effects the listener. For example, if a man from Baltimore describes the human rights failures of New Orleans to a group from Rochester, then the issue could be brushed off as Louisiana’s problem and ended with a summary we are lucky not to be that backward. Douglass prevents that from happening by giving the problem of slavery a face.
4.

The tone of Douglass’s speech is overall hopeful. Despite the dichotomy between the “national tumultuous joy” of the free citizens and the “mournful wail of millions whose chains… [are] rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts [of those celebrating Independence Day]” (378), Douglass ended his speech with a reminder that the world was progressing to such a point that slavery would end. Knowledge and intelligence have the power to “penetrate the darkest corners of the globe” (384). The dark recesses of a country’s id could no longer “hide itself from the all-pervading light” (384). For these reasons, Douglass concluded that slavery had just about burnt itself

out.
Douglass chose a hopeful tone to remind his audience that despite the negative implications of slavery, universal freedom was not unreachable. His audience should find comfort and encouragement in “the Declaration of Independence, the great principles it contains, and the genius of American Institutions” (384), because the very foundation of the United States of America’s existence would not allow slavery to continue.