Which best describes the effect of the repetition of the word "I" throughout "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?"
It reinforces the sense of personal importance the issue has for Douglass.
Which line from "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" supports Douglass's claim that the Fourth of July is not a cause worthy of celebration by all?
Fellow-citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them.
What was most likely the author's immediate purpose in writing "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?"
to persuade readers about the unjust treatment of African Americans
Read the excerpt from "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?"
Is it not astonishing that, while we are ploughing, planting, and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, silver and gold; that, while we are reading, writing and ciphering, acting as clerks, merchants and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators and teachers; that, while we are engaged in all manner of enterprises common to other men, digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hill-side, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives and children, and, above all, confessing and worshipping the Christian's God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave, we are called upon to prove that we are men!
Based on the excerpt above, what was most likely true about this time in the nation's history?
African Americans were performing the same duties as others without the same rights.
Read the excerpt from "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?"
Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us?
How does this rhetorical question contribute to the passage's central idea?
It reinforces the idea that the rights given to others are not extended to African Americans.
Read the excerpt from "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?"
When the dogs in your streets, when the fowls of the air, when the cattle on your hills, when the fish of the sea, and the reptiles that crawl, shall be unable to distinguish the slave from a brute, then will I argue with you that the slave is a man!
What effect does the repetition of the word "when" have?
The repetition reinforces Douglass's incredulity at the opposition's attitudes.
Which group in nineteenth-century America would likely be the most receptive audience for "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?"
abolitionists
Read the excerpt from "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?".
But I fancy I hear some one of my audience say, "It is just in this circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind. Would you argue more, and denounce less; would you persuade more, and rebuke less; your cause would be much more likely to succeed." But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? That point is conceded already. Nobody doubts it.
Which statement best explains why this is an example of a counterclaim by Douglass?
Douglass addresses a potential argument of the other side and makes a case against it.
Read the excerpt from "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?"
Fellow-citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, "may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!" To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world. My subject, then, fellow-citizens, is American slavery. I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slave's point of view.
Which best describes why this is an example of inductive reasoning?
It starts with details and uses them to support a more sweeping statement.
Which excerpt is a counterclaim in "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?"
What, then, remains to be argued? Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken?
