Question

Read the excerpt from Frederick Douglass's speech "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?"Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.Which phrase best describes the connotation of the word "reigns"?a. a sense of opportunity and growthb. a sense of fear and anxietyc. a sense of compassion and humanityd. a sense of oppression and domination

Answer 1

d. a sense of oppression and domination

Step-by-step explanation:

In this excerpt, Douglass conveys the idea that there is no other country more cruel, brutal, tyrannical, and hypocrite than America, the verb “reigns” is used to contribute to that overall idea. Although the literal meaning of the word is “to hold royal office” or “to be king or queen,” in this context the word invokes another idea in addition to its literal meaning: its connotation is negative and gives us a sense of oppression and domination.