Douglass: From Slave Narrator to Abolitionist

Orator

Enlightenment “man”?

• Ch. X, “to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one . . . To annihilate the power of reason . . . Ceas[ing] to be a man” (106)

• Ch. XI, Master Thomas: “if I would be happy, I must lay out no plans for the future . . . setting aside my intellectual nature” (108)

Leisure and thought, thinking and humanity

“[At Mr. Garnder’s] I was kept in such a perpetual whirl of excitement, I could think of nothing, scarcely, but my life; and in thinking of my life, I almost forgot my liberty” (106).

---“to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a

thoughtless one. . . He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery . . . And he can be brought to that only when he ceases to be a man” (Narrative 106)

Bonds of affection, affiliation• “I am not the only slave in the world” (84)• Sabbath school: “teaching these my loved fellow-slaves how

to read” (94)• “When I think that these precious souls are to-day shut up in

the prison-house of slavery, my feelings overcome me . . . They had been shut up in mental darkness. I taught them, because it was the delight of my soul to be doing something that looked like bettering the condition of my race” (95).

• “I loved them with a love stronger than anything I have experienced since” (95).

• “We never moved separately. We were one” (95)• “It is my opinion that thousands would escape from slavery,

who now remain, but for the strong cords of affection that

bind them to their friends” (110).

Another 18th/19th-century philosophical influence: moral sentiment

“How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortunes of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it. Of this kind is pity or compassion, the emotion we feel for the misery of others, when we either see it, or are made to conceive it in a very lively manner.”

Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments, 1759

Sympathy: political impulse, rhetorical obligation (burden, opportunity)

• Benevolence or “fellow-feeling” serves the social order

• Sympathy is generated through representation: we feel for the other when the other’s circumstance is made present to us through observation or description

Rhetoric and sympathy: from division to identification

“It would require sustained rhetorical effort, backed by the imagery of a richly humane and spontaneous poetry, to make us fully sympathize with people in circumstances greatly different from our own”

Kenneth Burke, A Rhetoric of Motives. Berkeley: U of California P, 1950.

Douglass as slave narrator: object of sympathy

His feelings after he reaches the North: “insecurity and loneliness

“to understand it, one must needs experience it, or imagine himself in similar circumstances. Let him be a fugitive slave . . . I say, let him place himself in my situation . . . I say, let him be placed in this most trying situation—then, and not till then, will he fully appreciate the hardships, of, and know how to sympathize with, the toil-worn and whip-scarred fugitive slave” (112).

Douglass as political agent: resisting objectification

The whipping of Aunt Hester: “I wish I could commit to paper the feelings with which I beheld it” (45).

In Baltimore, seeing Sophie: “I wish I could describe the rapture that flashed through my soul . . . “(62).

[seated at my writing table or confined in slavery]“It is impossible for me to describe my feelings as the time of my

contemplated start drew near” (110). “I have been frequently asked how I felt when I found myself in

a free State. I have never been able to answer the question with any satisfaction to myself” (111).

Douglass stages the reception of a rhetoric of sympathy: a lesson in how to read his narrative• Slave songs: “I did not, when a slave, understand the deep

meaning of those rude and apparently incoherent songs. I was myself within the circle; so that I neither saw nor heard as those without might see and hear.”

• “The hearing of those wild notes always depressed my spirit . . . • “As I am writing these lines, an expression of feeling has already

found its way down my cheek . . . My first glimmering conception of the dehumanizing character of slavery”

• Douglass re-experiencing the wrongs of slavery • If anyone wishes to be impressed with the soul-killing effects of

slavery, let him go . . . , place himself in the deep pine woods, and there let him, in silence, analyze the sounds that shall pass through the chambers of his soul . . . “ (51)

The rhetorical power of evoking an imagined circumstance

• Ch. XI: “I would keep the merciless slaveholder profoundly ignorant of the means of flight adopted by the slave. I would leave him to imagine himself surrounded by myriads of invisible tormentors . . . Let him feel his way in the dark; let darkness commensurate with his crime hover over him . . . Let us render the tyrant no aid; let us not hold the light by which he can trace the footprints of our flying brother” (107)

From liberty to freedom

• Reading The Liberator; connection with anti-slavery cause; speaking, a “severe cross” taken up reluctantly

• “I felt strongly moved to speak . . . I spoke but a few moments, when I felt a degree of freedom” (119).

Enlightenment theories of political freedom

• “Liberation may be the condition of freedom but by no means leads automatically to it. . .”

• “[Freedom is] the more or less free range of . . . activities which a given body politic will permit and guarantee to those who constitute it” (Hannah Arendt, On Revolution, 19-21

• “All that is required for this enlightenment is freedom . . . The freedom for man to make public use of his reason in all matters” (Kant, “What is Enlightenment?)

Douglass: from “living evidence” to political actor

• Douglass’ relationship with Garrison: tutelage• Demand for testimony: Peabody’s 1849 review on the

Narrative: He is one of the living evidences that there is in the colored population of the South no natural incapacity for the enjoyment of freedom. . . . [He may be] “a most useful laborer in the cause of human rights” (138).

• Nathaniel P. Rogers’ review of an 1844 address (139-41): The narrative was “dullish in manner,” but after he closes the narrative he “let out the outraged humanity that was laboring in him, in indignant and terrible speech . . . [reference to Toussaint] . . . He was not up as a speaker--performing. He was an insurgent slave taking hold on the right of speech, and charging on his tyrants the bondage of his race” (141)

Breaking away, 1845-52

• Move to Rochester; founds the North Star (Chronology, p. 175)

• Rejecting key elements of Garrison’s abolitionist philosophy and practice

• “Enlightenment is man’s leaving his self-caused immaturity. Such immaturity is caused by lack of determination and courage to use one’s intelligence without being guided by another” (Kant, “What is Enlightenment?” 1784)

Rhetorical analysis

• identifying the conditions for freedom of political expression (or their impediments)

• identifying the genres used for such expressions: their possibilities and their limitations

• for this assignment: analyzing the voice/ethos of the speaker who can claim freedom, constitute the polis, evoke sympathy

“What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”

• Occasional (epideictic)/abolitionist speech– Classical definition: praise/blame, present,

consolidating communal values• Backgrounds: Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Fugitive Slave Act

(1850): enforcement of Article 4, Section 2 of the United States Constitution, which required the return of runaway slaves

Ethos

• Who speaks? Who is this person who speaks in relation to the listeners, both immediate and in the circulation of the text in a public of letters

• With what authority?• Ancient Greek points of reference:– Good judgment (intelligence)– Good will in relation to the polis: the speaker wants the

best for the group (community, nation, etc.)– Good standing (status, excellence)

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR_QOCwVRg8

Developing a (hypo)thesis

• Center of gravity: what moves you, interests you, provokes you about the speech?

• sj: “ring-bolt” -- “The Declaration of Independence is the ring-bolt to the chain of your nation’s destiny” (152): securing a boat to a dock (Wikipedia) -- D. has knowledge and experience of boats, docks, sailing. He uses this experience to craft a figure to represent the security of the principles of the Declaration: “Cling to it, and to its principles, with the grasp of a storm-tossed mariner to a spar at midnight” (152).

• Mansi: references to religion are irritating: but it appears that D. uses religious references as a source of authority.

Provisional theses

• SJ: D. presents himself as a crafts-person, someone who knows how things work (boats). The metaphor linking boats to states makes him credible to a public of citizens across racial divides, people who know and use craft and can respond to the idea of crafting a state on different principles.

• Mansi: Even though D. is antagonistic to Christianity, he uses many references to religion, thus enhancing his authority with a public that values religious connection and commitment.

Your writing process

Reread the speech and make a list of passages where D. identifies himself, describes himself, or “divides” himself from his audience

Reread the Narrative for places where Douglass characterizes himself or where others comment on the kind of person he is. Do any ideas or stylistic features of the speech seem similar to (or different from) those in the autobiography?