I do not despair of this country.
Despite his criticism, he ends with hope for change and the ending of slavery
11 Matching Annotations
- May 2025
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The existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretense, and your Christianity as a lie
Douglass attacks american ideals, declaring them meaningless as long as slavery exists
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the whole political power of the nation (as embodied in the two great political parties) is solemnly pledged to support and perpetuate the enslavement of three millions of your countrymen
he exposes both major political parties as a complicit in maintaingin slavery as national policy.
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It has made itself the bulwark of American slavery, and the shield of American slave-hunters
Douglass criticizes the church for activly protecting slavery rather than opposing it.
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o him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license
He condoms the holiday as fraud from the perspecitve of the enlaved, turing patriotic symbols into evidence of hypocrisy
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it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder
Douglass cals for a forceful response to slavery, not a polite debate but moral outrage.
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America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future
This line accuses the nation of betraying its calues across all time by upholding slavery.
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I hear the mournful wail of millions
He shifts from individual experience to the collective suffering of all ensalved ppl, showing their pain
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To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony.
Douglass using imagry to show the cruetly of asking enslaved ppl to celebrate freedom they dont have.
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Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us
Douglass is showing the irony of the Fourth of July by showing the exclusion of Black Americans from the holiday.
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What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence?
This sets up a contradiction of the speech celebrating liberty in a contry with slavery
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