DECLARATIONS IN DIALOGUEFREDERICK DOUGLASS: ABOLITIONIST, ORATOR, AUTOBIOGRAPHER

THREE ENCOUNTERS WITH DOUGLASS• Another 19th-century social movement tests Enlightenment ideas: abolition

• Ethos in two genres and two media:

• A written slave narrative

• An epideictic speech (speech for a special occasion)

• Douglass’s rhetorical challenges and choices

ETHOS-RELATED CHALLENGES FOR DOUGLASS

• Good standing (aretê: status, excellence) –

• the problem of the exceptional character in social reform rhetoric: representing others

• the former slave as living evidence

• Good judgment (phronêsis) – the power of the story vs. the argument against slavery

• Good will (eunoia) – how does a black speaker present slavery to a white audience?

GENRE

• Autobiography: a crafted story• Slave narrative: a familiar genre• Both genres located between history and literature• Rhetorical purposes: for self-reflection, to create a

public picture of the self and the life, to advance a cause through the narrative of a life experience

AMERICAN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

• Puritans as God’s elect; preoccupation with the self -- diaries, journals, meditations

• Jonathan Edwards, “Personal Narrative” (c. 1740)

• Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography (1771-88)

• Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance” (1841): “Man is his own star”

• Enlightenment focus on the individual: responsibility for actions, autonomy, “striving,” isolation

• America: an exceptional land; a new and empty land; opportunities for creativity: “the American, this new man” (Crèvecoeur)

SLAVE NARRATIVES• Documentary contributions requiring interpretation

• Very popular form: over 100 book-length slave narratives

• Relation between speeches and print texts: narratives as “structured formal revisions of spoken works organized and promoted by anti-slavery organizations” (Davis and Gates xvi)

“It was the face of the race that the slave narrators painted, so as to give it a voice. It is this notion of the presence of voice and self-creation through representation, transferred to writing through the metaphor of voice, which motivated the ex-slaves to produce hundreds of testimonies of their enslavement . . . ” (Davis and Gates xxxi).

Davis, Charles T., and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., eds. The Slave’s Narrative. New York: Oxford UP, 1985.

SOME SLAVE NARRATIVES 1760-1845

• 1789, Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narratives of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, written by Himself. London.

• 1831, Mary Prince, The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave, Related by Herself, With a Supplement by the Editor, to Which is Added the Narrative of Asa-Asa, A Captured African. London.

• 1833, Richard Allen. The Life, Experience, and Gospel Labors of the Right Reverend Richard Allen. Philadelphia.

• 1836, Jarena Lee, The Life and Religious Experiences of Jarena Lee, A Coloured Lady, Giving an Account of Her Call to Preach the Gospel. Revised and Corrected from the Original Manuscript, Written by Herself. Philadelphia.

• 1840, Juan Francisco Manzano, Poems by a Slave in the Island of Cuba, recently liberated, translated from the Spanish, by R. R. Madden, M. D., with the History of the Early Life of the Negro

Poet, written by Himself . . . London.

ABOLITIONIST MOVEMENT(S)Extensive history in England, France, and American

1775, Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, Philadelphia (Quakers)

1775, Thomas Paine, “African Slavery in America”

Gradual elimination of slavery in the North: Northwest Ordinance, 1787

Slave trade outlawed by 1825, but illegal slave trade continued (e.g., Amistad)

1833, American Anti-Slavery Society, founded by William Lloyd Garrison, Theodore Weld, and Robert Purvis

• The Liberator, newspaper, 1831-1865

• Tenets of Garrison’s abolitionism:

• Immediate emancipation• Disaffiliation with the U.S. government: the Constitution as a pro-slavery document• Pacifism

FROM THE FIRST ISSUE OF THE LIBERATOR, JANUARY 1, 1831

“To the Public” (page 1)Assenting to the‘self-evident truth maintained in the

American Declaration of Independence, ‘that all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights--among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,’ I shall strenuously contend for the immediate enfranchisement of our slave population.”

"I am aware, that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. . . . I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD.”

All issues available online through UCI Library: 19th Century U.S. Newspapers

The newspaper speaks!

. . . I come, a stranger in this busy sphere,

. . . My name is ‘liberator’! I propose to hurl my shafts at freedom’s deadliest foes. . . to redeem the slave!

DOUGLASS, ABOLITIONIST

• 1838, New Bedford, Mass -- subscription to The Liberator: “my soul was set on fire”; “sympathy for my brethren in bonds”; “I got a pretty correct idea of the principles, measures and spirit of the anti-slavery reform . . . I took right hold of the cause” (Narrative 119)

• First speech, 1841; hired as a lecturer by Garrison’s organization; approximately 200 speeches between 1839 and 1845, composition of the Narrative ( Blassingame lxxxvii-cii)

• Few autobiographical details; more analysis: “the proslavery character of American churches, freedom of speech, nonresistance, northern economic support of slavery, the right of petition, northern racial prejudice, black suffrage, imprisonment of fugitive slaves, etc.” (Blassingame xlvii-liii)

• As a fugitive slave, “Douglass drew from his own experiences to produce graphic illustrations of the peculiar institution. He appeared as both victim and victor, exhibiting the nobility and intellect of blacks, and the contradiction that was slavery” (Blassingame xlvii).

John W. Blassingame, ed. The Frederick Douglass Papers. Series One: Speeches, Debates, and Interviews. Vol. 1: 1841-46. New Haven: Yale UP, 1979.

PRESSURE TO TELL HIS STORY• “By 1844, Douglass’s oratorical skills and thoughtful analyses caused many

observers to doubt him; some claimed he had never been inside the peculiar institution.”

• Danger for a fugitive slave to reveal details: possibility of recapture

• Douglass responds to pressure by writing the Narrative (1845): 9 reprints in three years, 11,000 copies, translations

• Anxiety about recapture after the publication of the book leads to extended tour of Great Britain

DOUGLASS, AUTOBIOGRAPHER

First autobiography of three: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, 1845

• My Bondage and My Freedom, 1855

• Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, 1881

• Representative Man/Rhetorical Man

3 ETHOS-RELATED RHETORICAL CHALLENGES:• 1. speaking for himself, speaking for others: the power of the exceptional life story

• 2. beyond spectacle: becoming more than living evidence, the body on display

• 3. embedding the argument within the story: the power of the life story

Romancing the story: “Above all else, this book . . . Is a great story told, like most other great stories, out of the will to be known and the will to write” (Blight 1; see also Gates).

Propaganda? (Blight 7, 10, 13, 14, 20, 22) Manipulation? (Blight 10, 13)

My thesis: Blight’s emphasis on the story, along with his frequent references to “propaganda” and “manipulation” diminish the force of Douglass’ Narrative as a rhetorical contribution to the abolitionist movement.

Rhetors in 19th-century social movements construct ethos so as to dramatize the process by which experience forces a critical analysis of the social order and, in so doing, support arguments for change

REPRESENTATIVE MAN

THE PROBLEM OF THE LIFE AND BODY AS EVIDENCE“It was at once deeply impressed upon my mind, that, Mr. Douglass could be . . . a stunning blow at the same time inflected on Northern prejudice against a colored complexion”

(“Preface” by Garrison 32-33).

Douglass introduced as “chattel,” “a thing,” a piece of southern ‘property’” (Blassingame l).

Douglass participates: “This head, these limbs, this body, I have stolen from my master!” (1846)

from “living evidence” to political actor• Douglass’ relationship with Garrison: tutelage

• 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)

“Taking hold of the right of speech”A dramatic life story in 11 chapters:

• I-IV – through the gates of hell: slave child with no family; hunger, cold, witness to violence; subject to brutal economies and lawlessness

• V – sent to Baltimore through “the work of Providence”: “I was chosen.” F. has a “deep conviction” that he would not always be a slave (62)

• VI-VII -- literacy instruction, interrupted, pursued: “From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom” (64); Columbian Orator; on the docks, the idea of escape

• VIII-IX – setbacks: assessed as property, back to the plantation – the “mean” Master Thomas (76)

• X – descent into hell:

• field work, sent to Covey, the slave-breaker: “the dark night of slavery closed in upon me; and behold a man transformed into a brute!” (81)

• An appeal to God, apostrophe to the ships: “O that I were free! O, that I were on one of your gallant decks” (83-84)

• Fighting Covey: “a turning point in my career as a slave”; the “sense of my own manhood” (89): “a glorious resurrection, from the tomb of slavery, to the heaven of freedom” (89)

• XI – abortive escape; final escape: “I felt like one who had escaped a den of hungry lions” (112)

Douglass’ Narrative: analysis and argument

Chapter I: family• “My father was a white man.” “I never saw my mother . . .”

(42): destruction of family bonds

• sexual exploitation; “a very different-looking class of people” (44)

• Violence: F. as witness and participant (45) – reading ethos in the silences

WHAT CAN THE READER (WHITE, NON-SLAVE) KNOW ABOUT THE LIFE OF THE SLAVE?Questioning “the will to be known” as a satisfactory interpretation:

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).

HOW WELL CAN THE SLAVE (OR THE AUTHOR) KNOW HIMSELF, THE EXPERIENCES OF OTHER SLAVES?• Ch. II - 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” (51).

• “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)

“Slavery” is not something immediately available to experience. It is learned, reflected upon, remembered.

ANALYSIS CONTINUED

economic, social, and legal conditions of plantation life – an ethnographic effort (Ch. II-IV)Psychological analysis: slaves as subject to the allure of privilege (49); subject to prejudices (54-55); slave-owners corrupted by “the blighting and dehumanizing effects of slavery” (63). RE Sophia Auld: “slavery proved as injurious to her as it did to me” (66)No rule of law for slaves: “To be accused was to be convicted, and to be convicted was to be punished; the one always following the other with immutable certainty” (56); slaves as property: inheritance, division, failure to emancipate (72-73)

Differences within the category: city slaves have much better circumstances than those on the plantation

CHAPTER VII, THE COLUMBIAN ORATOR

• Heard students reading from The Columbian Orator on the docks; bought a copy

• Dialogue between master and slave

• Sent back to plantation: taught other slaves to read the New Testament on Sundays

“Dialogue between a master and a slave” in Caleb Bingham’s Columbian Orator, 1797(Blight 129-31)

• The slave is represented as having been recaptured, . . . and the master opens the dialogue with an upbraiding speech, charging the slave with ingratitude, and demanding to know what he has to say in his own defense.

• The slave rejoins, that he knows how little any thing that he can say will avail, . . . and with noble resolution, calmly says, ‘I submit to my fate.’

Contact with rhetorical culture of the era: imagining agency within a public

• “Touched by the slave‘s answer, the master tells him he is permitted to speak for himself. Thus invited to the debate, the slave made a spirited defense of himself, and thereafter the whole argument, for and against slavery, was brought out. The master was vanquished at every turn in the argument; and seeing himself to be thus vanquished, he generously and meekly emancipates the slave, with his best wishes for his prosperity. . . .

I could not help feeling that the day might come, when the well-directed answers made by the slave to the master, in this instance, would find their counterpart in myself.”

• “The moral which I gained from the dialogue was the power of truth over the conscience of even a slaveholder” (68)

• Sheridan’s speeches for emancipation of Catholics: “a powerful vindication of human rights” (68)

• The master does not take away the liberty of the slave he purchases; the issue of consent

• “It is in the order of Providence that one man should become subservient to another”; masters not to blame for the custom they did not originate

• The good master: generosity is owed for kind treatment

• The good master can provide support in old age for the slave.

• If I freed you, you should appreciate the favor.

• That liberty was lost by force not right

• Providence can just as well warrant theft, escape, and retaliation

• No such relations are possible under the condition of master/slave

• Death would be preferable to old age in the condition of slavery

• Granting liberty to a slave is only righting a wrong--not deserving of praise and gratitude.

ARGUMENTS ABOUT SLAVERY

SLAVE AS ANIMAL

• From the “Dialogue” in Columbian Orator: “You have reduced them to the state of brute beasts; and if they have not the stupidity of beasts of burden, they must have the ferocity of beasts of prey. Superior force alone can give you security. . . . Such is the social bond between master and slave!” (131)

• “I envied my fellow-slaves for their stupidity. I have often wished myself a beast . . . Any thing, no matter what, to get rid of thinking!” (68).

RACE, LABOR, AND DISCRIMINATION IN THE NORTH

• Race and labor (103-04): black and white ship-carpenters: “the slightest manifestation of humanity toward a colored person was denounced as abolitionism, and that name subjected its bearer to frightful liabilities” (105)

• Prosperous and generous blacks in the north (117), but no work as a caulker, given “the strength of prejudice against color” (118)

LITERACY: AN INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENT?

“What he most dreaded, that I most desired. What he most loved, that I most hated. That which to him was a great evil, to be carefully shunned, was to me a great good, to be diligently sought; and the argument which he so warmly urged, against my learning to read, only served to inspire me with a desire and determination to learn. In learning to read, I owe almost as much to the bitter opposition of my master, as to the kindly aid of my mistress. I acknowledge the benefit of both” (64).

Rhetorical figure: antithesis – style as “manipulation” or a way of thinking through conventions of artistry?

From “the will to write” to the need for a “reading public”“Literacy” as a communal/dialogic/public project: Douglass’ analysis of and participation in publics (and counter publics)

• Slave songs: “the “the prayer and complaint of souls boiling over with the bitterest anguish” (51)

• slaves suppressing the truth (54): “a still tongue makes a wise head” (maxim)

• turning poor white boys into teachers (67), but also interlocutors – “I used to talk this matter of slavery over with them” – they created a public on the docks

• F. – a ready listener: what is “abolition”?; newspaper article about petitions (69)

• • writing as technical writing (70); copybooks

• • back on the plantation: Mr. Wilson’s Sabbath school (78)

• • Frederick teaching Sabbath school (94); teaching slaves at home (95)

FOR WED./THURS.

Douglass’ Narrative:

Thought, Affiliation, sympathy