Independence Day - the freedom = one passionate former slave

Fredrick Douglass is saying in “What is the Fourth of July to the Negro,” that he cannot talk to these abolitionists about freedom, and the fourth of July because he as a black man is not free. He cannot vote, or do anything that I white man can. He has no real rights. If a slave happened to be set free, they would have no rights and not be able to survive in a world that thinks of them as inferior.

The way that Douglass refers to logos, is he talks to them in a manner that makes his audience feel almost stupid and shameful. That they could possibly think that he would or could talk about the Fourth of July as a black former slave. He uses an appeal to ethos by using the lists of things that black people can’t be because they aren’t given the chance to. He talks about how he can’t be all of these things because he is a black former slave. He uses an appeal to pathos by using “you” he talks to them as if they are the reason for all of the things that he talks about. He wants them to know that even being abolitionists it doesn’t mean that you are exempt from the people who make it harder for black people to succeed. Douglass uses the three rhetorical devices very well and uses them both subtly and clearly, which is a good balance and gets the point across better.