Douglas

To me, Douglas is saying that the 4th of July has no meaning to black people. He states that even though we became a separate nation the slaves were still slaves. There is no meaning for celebration for the slaves because they were not freed. He uses logos to show us how slaves should be freed. He turns the beliefs of people who have slaves to show that slaves are indeed men. He turns all the slave owners argument against themselves. He also states that since a slave gets punished for certain actions that’s admitting the had premeditated thought, and what separates humans from animals is the ability to think about our actions. So therefore a slave is indeed a man. Not only can a slave think he can also do a list of things that a white person can. That to me is a good way to argue his point because giving a lot of examples to support his argument makes his point a lot stronger than if he had two examples. He relates to pathos by asking how white people would feel if they had the flesh ripped of their backs from flailing. Thinking about something so brutal makes strong connections to the human emotions. He appeals to ethos with all of his evidence, i.e. using the Declaration of Independence to show that the slave should be free because all men are free in the document and earlier he used logos to show how a slave is indeed a man. The point overall is that the 4th of July doesn’t mean anything to the slaves until the slaves are freed.