Fourth of July Speech Essay

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Fourth of July Speech Essay Frederick Douglass gave a speech to American citizens on the Fourth of July in 1852. The speech told of the many negative things slavery brings. He also explains that it should be abolished, and how slavery had exposed the hypocrisy of the United States. Douglass says that even though it is the Fourth of July, and that it is Independence Day, the slaves are not free, so why celebrate? In paragraph one, it states, “What have I or those I represent to do with your national independence?” This is an example of hypocrisy because the slaves are not free, but the Americans are. In the third paragraph, he shows that slaves are men and deserve to be freed. “I look today in the presence of Americans, dividing and subdividing a discourse, to show that men have a natural right to freedom…” He also shows that slaves are just like other men and that there are “seventy-two crimes in the state of Virginia” for slaves, but there aren’t any similar laws like these for white Americans. In paragraph 11, Douglass is saying that all men know that slavery is wrong for them when he says “There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven who does not know that slavery is wrong for him.” This statement shows the hypocrisy of the nation because black, African-Americans are slaves, yet free, white men know it is wrong because they, themselves wouldn’t want to be slaves. In conclusion, Frederick Douglass proves that yes, there is hypocrisy in the nation. We celebrate freedom when slaves are not free. We treat slaves as men although we do not grant them freedom. We say one thing, yet we do
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