In Frederick Douglass’ “What to the slave is the Fourth of July,” Douglass attempts to change the mind of people who don’t see a problem with slavery. By doing this, Douglass intended to make the abolition movement more acceptable with Northern whites. Many northerners condemned slavery, but they approved of southerners having slaves, because this was a right given to them in the Constitution. Many of these northerners were only concerned with slavery not spreading to places where it shouldn’t, and actually stopping the institution. In Fredrick Douglass’ oration “What to a slave is the Fourth of July?’ he accuses people of being anti-slavery, but not taking the step forward and acting to abolishing slavery. 

Frederick Douglass begins his speech by expressing “that the law of our land, the constitution, should have been a document that granted freedom to everyone in America” (The Carolina Reader 259) “The framers of the constitution knew about the threat of slavery when drafting the constitution and they chose to do nothing about it. This allowed Southern Politicians to use this document to protect this institution.” (Knowles 1) He is sick and tired of people not seeing the issues with the abuse of an entire race. Douglass then appeals to the emotions of the people he speaks to by telling them that their country is currently abandoning the values that the patriots had established in this country (The Carolina Reader 257). Douglass is informing the audience that they can’t celebrate America being a free country until slavery is abolished. This appeal makes the audience feel guilty by not taking the initiative to stop this atrocity called slavery.  Douglass reminds his audience that the founders of this country broke away from Britain because they were being restricted of freedom. He is drawing a parallel between the oppressed Americans under British rule and slaves. Douglass speaks in-depth about how the founders of America should have made the Constitution prohibit slavery, and appeals himself directly to his audience, talking about examples that will trigger their emotion and further push them to take action.  

Next in Douglass’ speech, he identifies the role of racism in the legal system. He says that “There are seventy-two crimes in the state of Virginia, which, if committed by a black man, subject him to the punishment of death; while only two of the same crimes will subject a white man to the like punishment.” (The Carolina Reader 263) Douglass uses this example to show the extreme prejudice of the legal system and willingness of officials to put African Americans up for the death penalty, showing a complete disregard for African American lives. At this point in his speech, he wants the Caucasians to be asking themselves the question “Are we really this divided from black people?” By doing this, Douglass draws a parallel between Caucasians and African Americans by showing that they are both humans. He continues, “Slaves do activities that regular people can do such as ploughing, planting and building, but are treated unequal” (264). Douglass wants to make it a point in his speech to change the mind of his audience. Here, he wants to change the audience’s mind about the perception of blacks and whites and how both races should be considered equal. This is what Douglass’ views were; however, this was not the case in his time.  The three-fifths clause recognizes that slavery literally says by law slaves are not considered people. (Knowles 3) This 3/5’s clause Douglass argues, goes completely against American ideals of celebrating this freedom. (Pole 3) If slaves are people just like whites, then they should be treated like humans, unlike how the white population was treating them at this time. The whole population of white Americans at this time turned a blind eye to the urgent need for abolition, failing to see both the discrimination blacks faced in the legal system and the cruelty they faced by not being able to be educated. Even if white people were anti-slavery, they should have at least raised awareness about why blacks weren’t treated like actual people.

Finally, Douglass begins to speak about how it is very surprising to him that Caucasians are in support of slavery because of past events that led to their freedom. Douglass uses events that have occurred around the world to further display the hypocrisy of Americans. This evidence includes “Americans were in support of liberty in France and Ireland but ignore it in their own country” (The Carolina Reader 271). He then says “Americans were very supportive of the French revolution and the freedom of their country, but they don’t even have a free country themselves” (271). Douglass is indicating that a country that supports freedom in other countries should at least establish freedom in their own country first. He also indicates that “Americans take in, honor and salute fugitives of oppression from other countries but they advertise, hunt, shoot and kill slaves being oppressed in their own country” (271). This is another interesting point made by Douglass because America has always been famous for taking in immigrants that have fled their country to escape oppression. These refugees escaped oppression in their countries only to go to a country where oppression still takes place against an entire race. These people are treated like heroes by the American people, but the slaves being abused in their own country are “treated like animals” (Pole 5). The mindset and lifestyle of Americans are inconsistent with the values and ideals they claim to be following.

          It took people a very long time to realize that this injustice happening in America was wrong and not aligned with the ideals the country was founded on. African Americans were not treated and viewed like human beings until the late 20th century. In Douglass’ “What to the slave is the fourth of July?”, the main point of his speech was to change people’s minds about slavery. He convinces people about the wrongfulness of slavery, and pleads for the people who are anti-slavery to gain the courage to join the abolition movement. He is very convincing as an orator, and he even made a strong case to change the mind of his audience about the intelligence and abilities of slaves. It took the hard work and motivation of abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass to change people’s views on slavery and help them realize the barbaric, unjust nature of this institution had been justified by Americans for too long and, it needs to come to an end. 
